I had the good fortune to overhear some of my good friends and fellow MVPs discussing the process of data modeling for business intelligence systems. So what are the industry standard approaches for modeling dimensional data modelling? The short answer is that Kimball's dimensional modeling is the most widely adopted standard for any sort of data warehouse. Inmon is also well respected. But the consensus is to stick with Kimball, especially if you're looking for something an enterprise standards team is going to recognize as "standard". The book on my shelf and which I most … [Read more...]
What’s the Data Modeling Standard for Business Intelligence Systems?
Filed Under: Architecture, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Architecture, Best Practices, BI, Business Intelligence, Data Modeling, Data Warehouse, MVP, SQL Server 2012, SSAS
The All-New ‘Database Lifecycle Management” is available on MSDN
The initial release of Database Lifecycle Management is now available on MSDN. The site is something called "curated content". This means it's a single consolidated location to look up lots of disparate articles and content, all in one easy to search location. This “curated content view” contains the best content, video, and community-centric information from Microsoft, including topics like: SQL Server Data Tools · Get started with sample projects, code samples · Video demos by Gert Drapers (blog) · Script common data portability tasks using Sqlpackage.exe · Link to the SSDT … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Challenges, Cloud, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Video Tagged With: Azure, Backup & Recovery, Best Practices, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2012, Virtualization
Let’s Talk Licensing and Virtualization for SQL Server
I have two new articles up on Database Trends & Applications magazine. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback! Welcome to the Weird, Wild World of SQL Server Licensing Not long in the past, SQL Server licensing was an easy and straightforward process. You used to take one of a few paths to get your SQL Server licenses. The first and easiest path was to buy your SQL Server license with your hardware. Want to buy a HP Proliant DL380 for a SQL Server application? Why not get your SQL Server Enterprise Edition license with it at the same time? Just pay the hardware vendor for the … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Cool Technologies, Databases, DBTA, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends, Virtualization Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Developer, Internals, Licensing, Monitoring, SQL Server 2012, SQLMag, SQLPASS, Virtualization, VMware
Conquer Your Fear of Virtualization with a Free Day of Training at PASS!
Click the link above to register! Presented by my buddy, David Klee at House of Brick, one of the nations top VMWare consultancies specializing in Oracle and SQL Server deployments. David has a great write-up of this boot camp at http://www.davidklee.net/2012/10/01/virtualizing-your-business-critical-sql-servers-free-boot-camp-by-house-of-brick/. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, PASS, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Virtualization Tagged With: DBA, SQL Server 2012, SQLPASS, Virtualization
Timewarp: What Is a Relational Database?
Relational?!? Move On, Geezer! Maybe you're thinking that relational databases management systems (RDBMSs), like Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, are going the way of punched cards and rotary phones. After all, there's been a lot of hype these days in the IT media about the rise of so-called NoSQL (Not Only SQL) databases. Many new and upcoming CS and MIS graduates who like working with data might think that relational databases are, at best, soon-to-be legacy systems and, at worst, are a career dead-end. Wrong!!! It's true that all the cool-cat computing services (Amazon, Facebook, … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Architecture, BigData, Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, DBA, Developer, NoSQL, Oracle, SQL Server 2012
Two TechNet Radio Sessions You Don’t Want to Miss
I was recently honored to speak on TechNet Radio in two separate sessions about BigData & Hadoop and cloud databases (specifically SQL Azure). The show debuted on the TechNet homepage under “Today’s News” and on the TechNet Edge homepage. In each of these shows, I did what I like to do for all the parties I attend - bring a friend. To make my life easier, I simply reposted the verbiage that TechNet used, rather that to write my own. About the BigData/Hadoop video: Microsoft SQL Server MVP Kevin Kline and Vice President of Database Development at Quest Software Guy Harrison (blog | … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, BigData, Cloud, Databases, NoSQL, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Video Tagged With: Azure, BigData, cloud computing, Crowdsourcing, DBA, Developer, Hadoop, NoSQL, Quest Software, SQL Server 2012, Video
Accelerate OLTP with HP and Microsoft’s New High Performance Reference Architecture
If you haven't started to read Shashank Pawar (blog), you're missing out. Shashank is part of Microsoft Australia and has been writing some very good content lately. Here's an example from the Reference Architecture for High Performance SQL Server: HP and Microsoft engineering teams have worked together to create a reference architecture to Accelerate Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database workloads with a fully-flash based HP/Microsoft architecture and achieve significant performance increases, simplified database manageability, and industry leading TCO. The details come in a … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Architecture, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Hardware, IO, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Oracle, Performance
Microsoft Document Watch for Operational Excellence
Back when my day-to-day duties included database administration work and enterprise architecture, I became rather obsessed with the idea of operational excellence. I read everything I could on the topic. I made a list of favorites, which became somewhat shabby over time, as I dog-eared important pages and scribbled notes in the margins. (Perhaps that list of favorites might, in and of itself, make a good blog post). Fast-forward a decade and I'm still mightily interested in operational excellence for IT organizations. It's just that so much good material is available for free on the … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Compliance, Cool Technologies, Hardware, On-Line Resources, Security, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks, Virtualization Tagged With: Architecture, Best Practices, Compliance, DBA, Enterprise Architecture, Management, Operations, Performance, Security, SQL Server 2008 R2, Tools, Troubleshooting
