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• SSAS: Reference materialized dimension might produce incorrect results

  Reference dimensions let you create a relationship between a measure group and a dimension using an intermediate dimension to act as a bridge between them. In the Adventure Works demo, for example, they are used to link reseller sales and orders to the Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 25, 2009 3:59 PM by AlbertoFerrari | 13 Comments Filed under: Dimensional Model, SQL Server, SSAS

• SSIS: living in a parallel world? Not yet...

  Today I come into a nice bug (misfeature?) of SSIS 2008 and I'd like to share it with you. Let's start from the beginning: One of the keys to make something speedy is to parallelize it. In TableDifference I read from two inputs, compare them and produce Read More... Posted Sunday, September 14, 2008 10:57 PM by AlbertoFerrari | 4 Comments Filed under: Components, SQL, SQL Server, SSIS, TableDifference

• Visio and SQL Extended Properties: a tool to marry them

  Visio database models have column descriptions, SQL Server has extended properties where to store them but, even if they share the same producer, it seems that Visio is unable to store column descriptions in extended properties so that other tools can Read More... Posted Wednesday, November 07, 2007 12:00 PM by AlbertoFerrari | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL, SQL Server

• SQL: Merge two "history tracking" tables

  If you have two columns in a table that "remember" their old values in two different historical tables, as it is the case in AdventureWorks with EmployeePayHistory and EmployeeDepartmentHistory, you may need (or just wonder how) to merge these two tables Read More... Posted Monday, October 15, 2007 9:36 PM by AlbertoFerrari | 5 Comments Filed under: SQL, SQL Server

• How are GUIDs sorted by SQL Server?

  Today I ran into a nice problem with SQL Server fancy way of sorting GUIDS. I know, there should be no reason at all to sort GUID columns but, if what you need is run two tables side by side to check whether they are aligned or not (this is the task of Read More... Posted Friday, August 31, 2007 5:19 PM by AlbertoFerrari | 14 Comments Filed under: GUID, SQL Server

• Generate huge test tables using CTE

  Sometimes I need to have a huge table to make performance tests and I want to create the table easily. I found a simple way of producing these test data using CTE in a creative way and decided to post it so I can have it at hand when needed and maybe Read More... Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 10:18 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 1 Comments Filed under: CTE, SQL Server

• Bulk Insert of sorted data

  In a previous post I showed how to make bulk insert faster using SSIS. During Sql Server Conference 2007 I had the great opportunity to double check it with Stefano Stefani that analyzed the problem in greater detail and finally came up with both an explanation Read More... Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 2 Comments Filed under: Bulk Insert, SQL Server

• Making Fast Load really fast on clustered indexed tables with SSIS

  I have been so used to use int identity fields as primary key for any table and to believe it’s the fastest way to define a clustered primary key that I never thought this can cause serious performance problems to SSIS. Until I tested it and discovered Read More... Posted Sunday, April 08, 2007 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 20 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, SSIS

• Visio does not handle Schema? Let's force it to do!

  I love VISIO to make database modeling, it gives very nice and colorful diagrams that I use for the documentation. I hate VISIO as it is really far from perfect, among all the others one thing it lacks is the ability to generate a database using SCHEMA Read More... Posted Wednesday, September 06, 2006 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Scripts, SQL Server

• SqlBulkTool

  SqlBulkTool is a command line utility that is used to quickly create a mirror of a database. It reads its configuration from an XML file containing source and destination command strings and a list of all the tables to mirror and then handles the work Read More... Posted Friday, July 14, 2006 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 0 Comments Filed under: Bulk Insert, SQL Server

• Table Difference 1.1

  TableDifference has been updated to version 1.1. The major improvement is the fact that now TableDifference can handle a field as Key : a field that represent a key in the table, you must supply KeyOrder Compare : a field that is to be compared between Read More... Posted Thursday, July 06, 2006 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, TableDifference

• TableDifference: a solution to SCD handling

  In SSIS the SCD component does a lot of work for you but it works so slowly that it is quite always convenient to create an “ad hoc” solution to handle the slowly changing dimensions. As the main problem is that of determining the difference between the Read More... Posted Thursday, June 08, 2006 9:48 AM by AlbertoFerrari | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, TableDifference