W hile flipping through this month’s SQL Server Magazine (December 2010 ), I came across what I thought was a very interesting top 10 list of “ Favorite Go-To Websites for SQL Server Solutions ”. I could not find the list on the website, but if you have the December 2010 magazine, you can find it on page 21 in the Editors’ Best and Community Choice Awards. Here is the list provided by SQL Server Magazine: www.sqlservercentral.com – you can follow me here www.bidn.com – here www.sqlserverpedia.co...
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If you are anything like me, you document your SSIS packages for those who may have to maintain them after you move on to other projects. One thing that have disliked is how annotations worked in SSIS. There is no word wrap setting to automatically wrap to the next line, nor could you just hit the enter key to get to the next line. You had to hit CTRL along with the ENTER key to do this. I found it slightly annoying, but like any other annoyances, we accept it for what it is! J Annotations have ...
Recently, I was asked to install Denali for a client because one of the employees attended PASS 2010 and had seen a session about column based indexing. The client was really eager to begin testing in their environment to see what kind of performance boosts they would gain. As an obedient consultant, I installed Denali and created the database, file groups, partition function and a partition scheme for the test. While doing all this, I researched as much as I could find (not much out there on De...
I was so excited when I found out that Denali was released last week. Like it was Christmas time, I almost immediately went to download it and then I looked for what was new. J Unfortunately though, in the CTP that was released, there are no changes to Reporting Services. Now, that doesn't mean that future CTP's won't have modifications as I have read that they do plan on releasing some changes. Just not on this one! So don’t feel left out and keep your eyes out for what is coming soon. J UPDATE...
I have never had the opportunity to go to PASS before, but even though I was unable to attend this year, I sort of felt like I did! J The reason that I felt like I was there is because I was able to watch recordings of the keynotes and I read quite a bit of the Twitter feeds that were going on. So for all of you who did have the opportunity to attend this great even and who spent some of their valuable time tweeting, I send out a sincere thank you. Thank you all for keeping us updated with all o...
Write this down… No really… Write it, print it, send it to all of your friends and loved ones. J All kidding aside, I believe this to be a good quote to remember! There are many variations out there of this saying, but this is one version that I really like. “It's an OPPORTUNITY! Not an OBSTACLE!” I have been a firm believer in the power of perception and the attitudes that one has toward certain situations. Whether it is the seemingly daunting task of cleansing the data in a 12 terabyte databas...
I was creating an SSIS package recently and ran into the “TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation” error as shown in figure 1 below. Figure 1: Target Invocation Error This happened to me a year or so ago, but I think my resolution was to delete the script task and then added it back in. Essentially re-writing all of my script! This time however, I was bound and determined to find the root cause. So, I looked at my code in the script task and didn’t see...
Recently, a friend of mine asked me how he could have the date appended to the end of a file name when creating a standard subscription in Reporting Services. At first the requirement was straight forward as it only needed date and it would need to be saved to a file share somewhere. At this point, he was naming the file in a standard subscription, then putting @TimeStamp at the end of it. This however returns a format of “mmddyyyy hhmmss” format. So, I told him to switch the subscription type t...
I enjoy blogging. I enjoy passing on the information that I have gathered over the years. I also enjoy doing this while watching television. Currently I subscribe to Directv, but that is all about to change. This blog is about blogging in general, but more importantly it is about blogging productively while having a cost savings to my normal $100 a month Directv bill. J Last week, I subscribed to Netflix . Netflix allows me to stream movies to my PS3, XBOX 360, Wii and even my iPhone! Is that aw...
I recently became aware of a special hack in Windows 7. It is called GodMode and can very simply be one of the easiest hacks that I’ve ever seen. I guess technically it’s not a hack because it is more or less a hidden feature. A feature which allows you to do just about everything you can do with Windows in one screen. Basically the screen is a bunch of links to run the applications themselves, but it is more-or-less a massive link list (see screenshot below). While in GodMode, you can create pa...
**Updated: 11/6/2010** Brian K. McDonald SQLBIGeek Twitter: @briankmcdonald Welcome to the fourth post of my “SQLBIGeek’s Function Friday” blog series. In this series, I am hoping that I can provide some of the details about functions that I have either found on the internet or something that I had to create to meet a need. If it is something that I come across, I will attempt to make it shorter and/or perform better. If it is something I wrote, it is just something to share with you J Either wa...
Brian K. McDonald SQLBIGeek Twitter: @briankmcdonald Welcome to t he third post of my “SQLBIGeek’s Function Friday” blog series. In this series, I am hoping that I can provide some of the details about functions that I have either found on the internet or something that I had to create to meet a need. If it is something that I come across, I will attempt to make it shorter and/or perform better. If it is something I wrote, it is just something to share with you J Either way, I hope that you enjo...
Unlike fine wine, you typically wouldn’t want your statistics to be aged. At least for tables that are being updated frequently! A while ago, I showed you how to find out what indexes were on a table using the GUI . Then, I showed you how to generate a listing of indexes for a table or for the entire database using a query. Today, I am going extend those queries to include when the statistics were last updated. As in my prior example, the scripts shown below will use the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 a...
In a previous blog written back in June, I showed you how to use the interactive sort option on a table header text box using values returned from a data set. I also wrote this back in June, but it got lost in my “blogpile”. J At any rate, in this blog, I am going to expand that knowledge to contain dynamic sorting based on an expression. Please read “Interactive Sort Order using Reporting Services 2008” if you’d like to get see how you can sort based from values in the data set. For this exampl...
A few months ago, I installed SQL Server 2008 R2 and chose to install SSIS, SSRS and SSAS as well. While playing around with SSAS, I tried to open up SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and connect up to Analysis Services. The screenshot below shows how I tried to connect. Upon clicking Connect, I was given an unexpected error. All too frequently, we receive vague errors that need decoding like we were learning how to crack the Davinci Code. But this one didn’t delay me too long. It is pretty se...