Three months ago I wrote a blog post entitled Some thoughts on Visual Studio database references and how they should be used for SQL Server BI where I shared some thoughts on a feature available to database developers in Visual Studio 2010 that I would love to see added to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Analysis ...

Microsoft's new data platform vision for BI is called BISM - Business Intelligence Semantic Model.  While I focus primarily on manageability, availability and database engine features, I'd like to keep tabs on who can help you out with their input on the other aspects I rarely touch - Analysis Services (SSAS), Integration Services (SSIS), and ...

Over the past few weeks I have been making heavy use of the Database tools in Visual Studio 2010 (formerly known as datadude, DBPro, VSTS for Database Professionals or one of a plethora of other names that it has gone by over the past few years) and one of the features that has most impressed me has been database references.   Database ...

New Jersey SQL Server User Group (NJSQL) is bringing SQLSaturday #39 to NYC on April 24, 2010!  The free all-day training event will be hosted by Microsoft at their Midtown Manhattan offices.  The speaker line-up is growing fast—if you'd like to present, visit the event's open call for speakers.  This is a free full-day ...

I recently submitted a bug to Microsoft Connect concerning the behaviour of the expression language in SSRS, if you’re interested you can read about it here: DateAdd() doesn't throw an error when it has invalid parameters. I got a swift and detailed reply (for which I am grateful) from a fellow on the SSRS team however the content of it wasn’t ...

A lot of developers have SQL Server and its different services running on their PC or notebook to develop or test BI solutions. Unfortunately this slows down your system quite a lot. To speed things up when not using SQL Server, I used to stop and start each service manual quite often. Recently I found out that it's possible to start and stop all ...