Hi Friends, This is indeed so basic and simple and I got surprised when I observed during one of my assignments that the customer has not set a default measure for the cube; they just did not know about this option. Since when you browse the cube, a default measure is picked up automatically and that suits the requirement of the client :) But what if you want a different measure to pop up by default? This is where you set the default measure for the cube: As per the documentation the Analysis Se...
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Dear SQL Geek, Hope you are doing well. Continuing the success, here is the next bi - weekly webcast, absolutely free for the SQL Server community. It is your opportunity to hear a specialist and this time it is Sarabpreet Singh presenting on “Log Shipping”. On Wednesday, 16 May 2012 at 11:30 am IST, Sarabpreet Singh will present an intriguing webcast on - Log Shipping. You think Log Shipping is an old and not-so-worth solution to implement? Join this session and you'll change your o...
Hi Friends, By this time, many of you already know about columnstore indexes, a column store architecture that groups and stores data for each column on separate pages and then joins all the columns to return data, as required. Note that you can have only one columnstore index per table and as per Microsoft guidelines, you may want to put many columns in that one index. I am a little scared of putting ‘many’ columns in that one index :) – thus keeping an eye on the size of your...
Hi Friends, Speaking at SQL Server conferences is something that I cherish a lot, even more when it is outside my home country, India. It is indeed a privilege to interact with global audience and share knowledge. It is an unmatched and unforgettable experience. And this time, it was a pleasure speaking at SQLBits in London in March 2012. I delivered a session on Indexes which was well appreciated by the audience. Even more contenting is when you receive follow up emails after your session, cong...
Hi Friends, Continuing on from my last blog post “SQL Server: Clustered Index Physically Orders a table”, this post demystifies the myth “Clustered index physically a table”. The order of the rows in a page is managed by Row offset table and not by the clustered index. Row offset table defines the scope of a row in page i.e. it tells the start of a particular row in a page. Here is an abstract about row offset table from books online. ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...
Hi Friends, Today I got a question on “can you install SQL Server 32 bit on 64 bit OS?” Answer: Yes, you can ! During setup, click on the Options link and select the architecture (64 bit or 31 bit). By default on a 64 bit OS, x64 bit will be selected. You need to change it to x86. If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks Regards, Amit Bansal http://www.twitter.com/A_Bansal http://www.twitter.com/SQLServerGeeks http://www.amitbansal.net ...
Hi Friends, Look at this scenario: When I try to slice Reseller Sales measure group by Geography dimension, I get the following output: Rightly so, because the Geography dimension is not related to the Reseller Measure group, it just shows the grand total for all the members. This can be confirmed from the Dimensions Usage tab. But don’t you think that the output could show null or blank instead of showing incorrect or inaccurate results? No worries; there is a property called IgnoreUrelat...
Dear SQL Geek, SQLServerGeeks.com cordially invites you to SQL Server Day, the monthly dose of SQL Server knowledge & learning. And after successful events in Bangalore, Kolkata & Mumbai, we are coming again to Delhi NCR. We bring you 3 rock star speakers and 3 intriguing sessions. This is yet another opportunity to learn maximum from SQLServerGeeks.com across India. Sessions are spread across Business Intelligence, Developer & DBA tracks, so there is something for everyone to come a...
Hi Friends, Today, while I write this blog, I am preparing to travel to Hyderabad for another assignment with Microsoft India Development Center. My last training blog post was here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/485/completed-advance-t-sql-workshop-in-gurgaon-september-2011 This advanced SQL training was indeed a very challenging assignment for me. Kudos to audience; they made me stay awake every night, almost :). We had a classroom full of senior database adminis...
Scenario : A couple of days back, I was asked to setup a Disaster Recovery Strategy for one of the database located on my Production Server which was using SQL Server 2005 and Service Pack 3. This was an OLTP system and the technique which was supposed to be used for Disaster Recovery purpose was LogShipping. The production database on which the LogShipping was to be implemented was around 89 GB in size. The Production server and the DR server were at two separate locations in the United States ...
Hi SQL Geek, Continuing the success, here is the next bi - weekly webcast, absolutely free for the SQL Server community. It is your opportunity to hear a specialist and this time it is Amit Bansal presenting on “SQL Server 2012 for Developers”. On Friday, 27th April at 3 pm IST, Amit Bansal will present an intriguing webcast on - SQL Server 2012 for Developers. SQL Server 2012 delivers many highly anticipated developers features; many of them were long overdue, be it the SEQUENCE obj...
Hi Friends, Attending SQL Server sessions in India was never been so easy and accessible at- least not for free, but now anyone can attend these sessions for free and easily while being in their own city. SQLServerGeeks.com started organizing In-Person SQL Server Sessions in Delhi\Gurgaon\NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai two years ago and now moving to other parts of India. As you know we recently did couple of events in Bangalore, Kolkata & Mumbai and I am very happy to announce ...
Hi SQL Geeks, if you are looking for SQL Server 2012 feature pack; we blogged about it here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/QuickTip/sql-server-bi/523/sql-server-2012-feature-pack But if you are interested in the older versions of feature packs for SQL Server 2008 R2 & SQL Server 2008; follow these links: SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 feature pack: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26728 SQL Server 2008 SP3 feature pack: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=2...
Hi SQL Geeks, The Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Feature Pack is a collection of stand-alone packages which provide additional value for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012. You can download the feature pack from here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29065 Regards www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks
Hi Friends, Here is an interesting function: QUOTENAME() which returns a Unicode string with the delimiters added to make the input string a valid SQL Server delimited identifier. (from Books Online) For example: The default delimiter is square brackets, unless you specify any of the other two delimiters (single quote ‘ or double quote “) So where and how can this function be used? Dynamic SQL is a good example. Suppose you have object names that contain spaces and you want to extrac...
Hello Folks, You would be very much aware of the View in SQL Server. But do you really know about Inline Table-Valued Functions? Well you don’t have to worry further more on this, because I will let explain you in a brief. With the introduction of SQL Server 2000, Microsoft has offered two types of table-valued functions, i.e., Inline and Multi-Statement Table-Valued Functions. But now I am going to deal with the Inline table-valued functions . As you would had seen in my previous blog-pos...
Hi Friends, I am writing this blog on my way back from Great Indian Developer Summit where I presented 2 sessions and received great feedback on my session. I had started the Index Internals series sometime back and posted two blogs. You can find them here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/487/sql-server-index-internals-part-1-%E2%80%93dynamic-index-seek-operation http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/507/sql-server-index-internals-part-2-%E2%80...
Hi Friends, Last week while working on an assignment in Analysis Services, I came across a strange behavior that trace output was not showing. One of the readers of my blog, Tejal, pointed out that it was a known bug. You can read the blog here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/516/sql-server-analysis-services-trace-output-not-showing-while-processing-the-cube During the same assignment, I came across another one. The function library for some categories like DATETIME...
Hi Friends, This is turning out to be a fantastic year of conferences and speaking engagements. And God & my well-wishers continue to bless & wish… I haven’t been luckier before. The year begun with me traveling to Redmond in the last week of Jan for SQL BareMetal workshop; I blogged about that here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/477/sql-server-2012-baremetal-workshop-at-redmond-in-jan-2012-my-experience In February end, I travelled again to Re...
Hi All, It is a great news to all those who use SQL Server Express editions. Microsoft has increased the database size limit of SQL Server 2008 R2 Express edition from 4GB to 10GB. Previous versions of SQL Server Express which includes SQL Server 2005 Express and SQL Server 2008 Express editions has the database size limit to 4GB and now this is increased to 10GB for SQL Server 2008 R2 Express edition with Tools and SQL Server 2008 R2 Express with Advanced Services As mentioned in one of the MSD...
Hi Friends, I got a query from one of our blog readers that while he was processing the cube, the trace output was not showing up in the ‘Process Progress’ window. Something like this: If you observe closely this seems to be running forever as the Stop button is enabled. However, the message shows the Process succeeded. No worries; You can click on Stop and Close the dialog box since the processing is complete. You should be able to browse the cube. I have not yet investigated why th...
Hello Friends, It’s been a while that I have posted any blog. So here it is- Well with the arrival of SQL Server 2000, Microsoft has introduced the concept of User Defined Function (UDF). So there are basically three types of UDF’s: Scalar Functions Inline Table-Valued Functions Multi-Statement Table-Valued Functions In this blog-post, I would like to go on for Scalar Functions, and will take the other types in the next blog-post :) I have made some keynotes about the Scalar function...
Exciting news! SQL Server 2012 has released to manufacturing. Customers and partners can download an evaluation of the product today and can expect general availability to begin on April 1. Microsoft also announced that an additional preview of an Apache Hadoop-based service on Windows Azure that will be available in the first half of 2012 to connect SQL Server and integrated business intelligence tools with unstructured data. For more information about the news, check out Microsoft corporate vi...
Hi Geeks, We thank all the attendees who participated in the webcast quiz - 15March 2012 Thurs–Amit Bansal by Amit Bansal. The quiz was hosted here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/forums/sqlservergeeks-community/announcements/166/sqlservergeeks-com-bi-weekly-webcast-quiz-thurs-15-mar-index-tuning-by-amit-bansal The quiz question was: There is a table TABLE A with 3 columns, col1, col2 & col3. Col1 has a clustered index on it. You create a composite non-clustered index on col2 & 3. T...
Hi Friends, I had written a series of blog posts on the SEQUENCE feature in DENALI (now SQL Server 2012). You can browse them here: http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/346/sql-server-2012-denali-series-sequence-object http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/349/sql-server-2012-denali-series-sequence-object-%E2%80%93-part-2 http://www.sqlservergeeks.com/blogs/AmitBansal/sql-server-bi/358/sql-server-2012-denali-series-sequence-feature-%E2%80%93-part-3-...