SQL Server Management Data Warehouse

The Management Data Warehouse introduced in SQL Server 2008 is a comprehensive performance monitoring and reporting system. It is a handy way to consolidate performance monitoring and data for all your servers on a single system.

A couple of minor gotcha’s to consider when setting up the data collector. The setup is so easy it is tempting to do it on auto-pilot. Don’t.

1. This is an obvious one, but I’m pretty sure it happens more than you would expect. Make sure to create a blank database on your monitoring server where you will store the aggregated data collection sets. Don’t accidentally pick one of your production databases or it will add all the tables, views, stored procedures, functions, types, schemas, and other logging objects into that database (there are a lot of them). It will also mark that database as a data collection warehouse which will show up in the database list when you configure data collection on your other servers.
2. Make sure to create the temp folder that will be used to cache the performance data until the periodic upload to the Management Data Warehouse. If the folder is not created, the upload jobs will fail.

photo credit: Nick Saltmarsh / CC BY 2.0

Introduction to SSRS Report Builder

I made a short 30 minute presentation to fwPASS yesterday on the topic of Report Builder after Mark Dalman presented an Introduction to BizTalk. The intention was to present on Report Builder 3.0 (SQL Server 2008R2 version), but unfortunately I had SQL Server installation issues that prevented it. I presented using SQL Server 2005 Report Builder instead, but I highlighted some of the new features found in Version 3.0.

The first three slides are just tidbits of fwPASS information followed by the presentation.

Introduction to SSRS Report Builder

View more presentations from DeanWillson.

A side note: Other than slide 8, I created the entire presentation using Microsoft’s PowerPoint WebApp on my Windows Live SkyDrive account. It is a pretty nifty web-based alternative to Google Docs

IndyTechFest 2010

I am a Windows 7 phone programmer. At least that’s what Dave Bost, Bill Steele, and Jesse Liberty told me. That makes me feel pretty trendy.

With eight tracks of sessions I found myself wanting to attend two or three presentations simultaneously every hour. Unfortunately I had to choose just one.

Sessions I attended

A. Keynote with Jesse Liberty.

1. Windows Presentation Foundation for Developers

2. Introducing Windows Phone 7 Series

B. Lunch: Networking. It’s pretty fun to go to a regional event with over 400 attendees and realize that you know about 10% of the people there. I wanted to attend the Building a Company and Operating a Consultancy lunch and learn, but the room was packed full by the time I got my lunch.

3. Building Applications on Windows Phone 7 with Silverlight

4. Building a Data Mart 101

5. Application Development with Silverlight 4. Jesse mentioned Adam Kinney’s name in this session. That always makes me think I know a celebrity.

Thank you!

A big thanks goes out to the organizers, speakers, sponsors, volunteers, attendees, and anyone else that had their hand in the event! Thank you to my buddy Dave Fancher for giving me a ride from the Marriott North to the Marriot East.

The logistics, food, venue, prizes, etc. get better every time they hold the IndyTechFest. There were so many prizes from the sponsors it literally took an hour to raffle them all off – and they were even doing it quickly and efficiently.

Data Mining with SQL Server 2005

I presented this topic to fwPASS on January 26. There was a pretty good turnout. The video was edited for brevity.

Data Mining with SQL Server 2005

View more presentations from DeanWillson.

If you are interested in the topic, I highly recommend the MSDN Webcast: Applying SQL Server 2005 Data Mining to Enterprise Business Problems which I used in preparation for my presentation. The book I referenced in the presentation is Programming SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Press by Andrew J. Brust and Stephen Forte, specifically Chapter 20.

*The presentation was video taped and the audio was recorded separately with a high quality mic, but somehow the audio file vanished into thin air (read: accidentally deleted) the day after the event so the audio is straight from the camcorder, oh well. The lighting was not good in the video  because the overheads were dimmed for better visibility of the screen.

Where's my Cube? MSAS Deployment on Vista

In some ways I like Vista, but it sure seems like the learning curve on some development technologies is extended as a result. I seem to run into numerous things I need to track down and resolve that I wouldn't if I was developing on Server 2003 or XP. I created and deployed an Analysis Services cube... or at least I thought I did. The deployment wizard in VS 2005 indicated there were no errors and I was able to view the data in the VS browser, but when I opened Sql Server Management Studio (SSMS) and connected to my Analysis Services, my database and cube were not there.

After some experimentation and research, I realized I needed to right click and "run as Administrator" when I launched SSMS. When I did that, My cube magically appeared. Turns out Analysis Services uses the built in Windows User and Group functionality for security and the UAC puts a snag in it working as you might expect on Vista. Related url: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905868.aspx

After having administrative access to the Analysis Services database you can add an Admin or other Role in the "Roles" folder tree adding the logged in Windows user account then you can open SSMS normally without the "run as administrator" and you will be able to see and manipulate the database.