When I first started working as a technologist some 17 years ago, I was doing fairly low-level stuff: moving and reimaging computers, network cabling, and basic desktop support were the extent of my responsibilities. I decided early on that I wanted to move into a more advanced role, but faced a common quandary: I couldn’t get the job I wanted…
In designing a proper ETL architecture, there are two key questions that must be answered. The first is, “What should this process do?” Defining the data start and end points, transformations, filtering, and other steps must be done before any other work can proceed. The second question that must be answered is “What should happen when the process fails?” Too…
Last week I posted a brief survey about working the holiday. To those who normally are not required to work the holidays, I asked if they would be willing to do so if the price was right, and if so, what that price would be (relative to what they normally make). There were 46 responses to this survey, and I’ve…
Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are at-a-glance metrics for simple insight into the business. These are each designed to provide a glimpse into one aspect of a measurable business activity. KPIs are present in various implementations in most every reporting tool, including SQL Server Reporting Services. Until recently, KPIs in SSRS were not a native part of the SSRS reporting…
It’s that time of the year again – the Festivus season is upon us! In the next few weeks, families all over the world will be gathering around the Festivus pole while they wait for the traditional Festivus meat loaf to finish cooking. Afterward, they get some things off of their chests during the airing of grievances, followed by the…
Earlier today, Microsoft announced the release of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for SQL Server 2016. Pay close attention to this announcement, because this is not a typical update. Service Pack 1 unlocks most all of the programmability features found in Enterprise Edition, making them available in lower-cost (and even free) editions of SQL Server. Folks, this is a huge change…
I still remember the first real ETL process I developed. I was working for a hospital at the time, going through a major system implementation as we replaced a 17-year-old UNIX-based system with a more modern healthcare application suite with a SQL Server back end. I was tasked with building, testing, and executing the ETL processes for this conversion. While…
It has been a fantastic week here in Seattle at the annual PASS Summit. I’ve spent the last five days hanging out with 4,000 or so of my closest friends while teaching and learning more about SQL Server and data management. Although my schedule kept me busy – I delivered 3 sessions including a half-day on Biml – but I…
This week I’m attending the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle. I’ll be live blogging each of the keynote presentations on Wednesday and Thursday morning. This post will be updated throughout the duration of the Day 1 keynote. Introduction We’re off and running! PASS president Adam Jorgensen starts us off with some opening remarks about PASS, Microsoft. Adam shares that PASS…
I am excited to share that I will be presenting at the DevConnections conference in Las Vegas in October of this year. This is my fourth (if I remember correctly) time to have spoken at DevConnections, and the first time I will have delivered a full-day workshop there. This year I will present one workshop and two regular presentations: Building…