Stephen Wynkoop

Demo: Capture perfmon counters to binary logs and at the same time capture SQL Profiler. Then you can load both into profiler and see both at the same time. Great for troubleshooting what might be causing a problem or what is happening at a particular point in time.

Historical only (not real-time)

When things go Wrong

• What changed?
• What were you doing?
• What were you seeing?
• Answer: NOTHING.

Add all the counters you need. Don’t be skimpy. Start broad and then narrow down. If you don’t record it, you can’t see it.

Intro to SSAS 2008

Marc Beacom

• www.MarcBeacom.com
• twitter.com/MarcBeacom

You can import an existing cube into BIDS which will essentially create a copy of the project that was used to create the cube. (Probably only to a certain extent)

PerformancePoint Services 101

Craig Utley

• Craig Utley, Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors
  • Consultant specializing in development with Microsoft technologies and data warehousing
  • Published author of books, whitepapers, articles, and courseware
  • Operator of LearnMicrosoftBI.com

Performance Point Services

Monitoring, Analytics and Planning

Planning being removed in the next version

• Monitoring: Scorecards and dashboards.
• Analytics: Drill up, drill down, slicing, dicing, etc…

Performance Point ships only with MOSS. With MOSS 2010, 64-bit only, no 32-bit.

KPI Sources are usually cubes but can be other sources including SQL Server, Excel and other sources.

No Pie Charts until next version.

Financial analytics with SQL Server Analysis Services

Donald Farmer

@donalddotfarmer

Need to listen to the Scottish Starbucks analogy again. It was a great analogy but want to be sure I didn’t miss something.

Financial Calculations

• Currency Conversions
• Time Intelligence
• Account Intelligence

Resources

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/analysis-services.aspx
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/mosha/default.aspx
http://www.sqlserveranalysisservices.com/default.htm
http://sqlcat.com/Default.aspx

Full SpectrumBusiness Intelligence

Donald Farmer

@donalddotfarmer

These slides are masterful is telling the verbal story Donald is presenting. I am putting up a few of the key slides that will server as good reference to me.

Thanks Donald!

Data quality is “fitness for purpose”. IT cannot tell you is a record is good.

TJ Belt

http://tjaybelt.blogspot.com
http://www.twitter.com/tjaybelt

You are on-call, maybe middle of the night and you get a call and there’s a problem. What do you do?

• What tasks were last performed by what persons?
• Start documenting incidents if you don’t already. Great for helping resolve things later down the road.
• Document, document, document

Items to be sure of and continuously check

• Scan OS error events
• Check on backups
• System specific output files (xml, reports, files)
• Log and data file sizes
• Space available / Free space on drives
• Replication health
• SQL Server logs
• Other notes of interest

Work to get your logs clean over time so that problems become more apparent and you will spend less time chasing red herrings.

“You only need one. Either a good backup or a good resume.”

Only notify on error, not on success. (Of course there may be exceptions)

• What are Microsoft SQL Server operators and how to define them (Part 1)
• Undocumented SQL Server 2005 Database Maintenance Plan Stored Procedures
• DB2 and the Procedural DBA, Part 1

Dimension Table ETL with SSIS

Erik Veerman
Mentor, Solid Quality Mentors
SQL Server MVP

Dimension tables contain the “text descriptors” or attributes. Also organized as hierarchies of categories, levels and members.

Slowly Changing Dimension (Ralph Kimball)

• Type 0:No change (Fixed Attribute)
• Type 1:The value is overwritten (Changing Attribute)
• Type 2:Slow changes. A new row is added (Historical Attribute)

Type 2 – New surrogate key and Start Time/End Time updates so to add the new record.

Inferred Members

• Missing dimension member during Fact load later becomes available in the Dimension source
• Also known as late arriving dimensions
• Fact load, placeholder record added to dimension table with new surrogate key generated
• Dimension process, for inferred members, all dimension attribute columns are updated with new values (type 2 attributes are handled as type 1)

Additional SSWUG Articles

• Troubleshooting SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
• MSDN Webcast Summary: Introducing SQL Server Integration Services for SQL Server 2005
• Tips for using SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (Part 3)

Fact Table ETL with SSIS

Erik Veerman
Mentor, Solid Quality Mentors
SQL Server MVP

Identify Dimension Surrogate Keys

• Locate dimension candidate keys in transaction source
• Validate uniqueness and data integrity
• Considering historical changes
  • Identifying current dimension record, combine business keys with current identifying meta data (data identifier or boolean)
  • Handle missing dimension records
• SSIS Data Flow Options
  • Lookup transformation
  • Merge Join transformation
  • Fuzzy Lookup transformation
• SSIS Control Flow Option
  • Execute SQL Task

• Fact ETL involves surrogate keys, grain changes, and measure calculations
• SSIS handles these through several out-of-the-box transformations

Loading a Data Warehouse with SSIS

Brian Knight
bknight@pragmaticworks.com
CEO, Pragmatic Works

Why Data Warehouse?

• Get users off of transactional systems
• Keeping more data online
• Easier reporting
• Consolidate data sources

Data Separated into fact and dimension tables

• Dimension tables answer the pivot or where clause
  • Make as wide and descriptive as possible
  • Surrogate keys operate as unique ID for each row
  • Keep surrogate keys as small as possible
• Fact tables answer the what or select statement
  • Intersect all dimension tables
  • Surrogate keys from each dimension in this table
  • Measures are the “what” like Price, Quantity, Duration

Additional Articles

• MSDN Webcast Summary: Introducing SQL Server Integration Services for SQL Server 2005
• SQL Server 2008 Katmai Change Data Capture (CDC)
• Troubleshooting SQL Server 2005 Integration Services

• http://Blogs.pragmaticworks.com/brian_knight
• http://www.twitter.com/brianknight

Live – SQL Server Analysis Services – Real World Performance Tuning (4hrs)

Ted Malone

(I only caught a few minutes here and there of this marathon live session, but the parts I caught were good. We’ll have to watch the on demand once it goes up.)

• Recommends looking at a product called Performance Advisor from SQL Century for getting performance insight into SSAS.

DBA Checklist

Buck Woody, Microsoft SQL Server Specialist

http://blogs.msdn.com/buckwoody
http://www.informit.com/guides/guide.aspx?g=sqlserver
http://edge.technet.com/People/BuckWoody/

SSMS

• Object Explorer: Right click to see additional columns including Last Backup.
• Standard Reports available via right click
• Log Viewer

oSQL or SQLCMD

PowerShell – Latest and greatest

Post Installation

Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly

Recommends being alerted of both error AND success in order to know that maintenance task really did run.

Maintenance tasks

• Do not run the auto-shrink option in your tasks.

Take a baseline with PerfMon. Email him for a list of counters.

Keep a SQL Server run book containing all configuration changes.

Solving Business Pains with SQL Server Integration Services

Jason Strate

SQL Server MVP
Enterprise Consultant with Digineer
Working with SQL Server since 1997

feeds2.feedburner.com/StrateSql
twitter.com/StrateSQL

• Consolidate packages and deployment
• Use ForEachwith ADO Enumerator for non-file looping
• Expressions on connections increase flexibility of package
• Store config type info in tables for easy retrieval and looping

Add It Up – Analysis Services Aggregations

Craig Utley, Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors
–craig@solidq.com

LearnMicrosoftBI.com

• Hierarchies must be natural to create aggregations at various levels
  • This means creating attribute relationships
• ProcessFulland ProcessIndexesbuild indexes and aggregations
• ProcessUpdateperforms adds, updates, and deletes to a dimension table
  • If a change is detected, flexible aggregations are dropped
• ProcessAddonly adds new records so both flexible and rigid aggregations are kept

OLAP and Data Warehousing – Data Warehousing Solution Architecture (Part 2)

Avoiding Common Analysis Services Mistakes

Craig Utley, Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors
–craig@solidq.com

LearnMicrosoftBI.com

• Dimensions appear to be especially problematic for companies
• The first thing companies should do is correctlyidentify attribute relationships
  • Not identifying them is bad
  • Incorrectly identifying them is worse
• Attribute relationships with flexible relationship types can cause problems with non-unique attributes (eg. Date hierarchy)
• Decide when IgnoreUnrelatedDimensions should be true
• In MDX explicitly reference cells when possible
  • Products.Printersinstead of Dimensions(2).Printers
  • Products.Printersinstead of Products.CurrentMember

Live Session – DBA Survivor II

Thomas LaRock

http://thomaslarock.com/presentations

• Know your RAIDs.
• HA vs. DR – Two different things. Glad he is reminding folks of this!
• Networks – Don’t forget this can cause “performance” problems.
• DBA = Default Blame Accepter (I know Network admins that might argue about that.)
• Be Nice! – #1 rule?
• Email – DON’T DO THIS.  hehe
  • “I have never, nor will I now, tolerate your foolishness.”
  • “I am done with your useless babble.”
• Development
  • “A development server is a production server to a developer”
  • Ask them if it is OK to lock down that server, should fix that response.
  • Manage expectations
    • Be responsive AND responsible
      • Own success AND mistakes (Amen!)
    • Results, not effort
    • Tangible output
  • Get used to developers being needy – They are undo pressure to deliver products on time and under budget.
• Time Management
  • Get in a routine
  • To-Do List
  • Chunking – Write those 6 blog articles at once and schedule publication over the week.
  • Know when to say No

Oh yeah, the sessions. I almost forgot.

If you are interested in knowing what sessions I plan to attend, here is the list.

Day 1

• Scheduled
  • Solving Business Pains with SQL Server Integration Services
  • Avoiding Common Analysis Services Mistakes
  • Live Session – DBA Survivor
  • Live Q&A
• On-Demand
  • Enriching the Design of an Analysis Services Cube
  • Embedding Reporting Into Applications with the ReportViewer Control
  • Add It Up: Analysis Services Aggregations
  • Aggravating Aggregations
  • On Call Duties
  • Configuring the Business Data Catalog

Day 2

• Scheduled
  • DW Dimension Table ETL with SSIS
  • 7 Extraordinary Things To Do With Integration Services
  • DW Fact Table ETL with SSIS
  • SSAS Cube and Dimension Processing with SSIS
  • Q&A
• On Demand
  • DBA Checklist
  • Administrating SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
  • ESB Toolkit 2.0 Overview
  • Database Change Process
  • Loading a Data Warehouse in SSIS
  • Implementing Messaging Solutions Using ESB Toolkit 2.0

Day 3

• Scheduled
  • Intro to SSAS 2008
  • PerformancePoint Services 101
  • Financial analytics with SQL Server Analysis Services
  • Full Spectrum Business Intelligence – aligning IT and Business in the new world of data
  • Q&A
• On Demand
  • Data mining for DBAs
  • Introduction to Sketch flow
  • SQL Statement Tuning with Showplan
  • Live Session- Get jQuery().ready; with Rachel Appel
  • SQL Statement Tuning with Indexing Strategies

So, that’s the plan. Obviously all the on-demands won’t be able to be completed each day but hopefully within the next week I can get a look at each of them. There is always the hope of that one golden nugget out of each session.

Blessings.

Presenter: Matt Masson
http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/

Starting up a new project with SQL Server Integration Services? Save time and money by learning about how to avoid common issues that users hit when implementing their ETL solutions. Drawing on the most frequently asked questions in the MSDN Integration Services forum and some of the more interesting packages we’ve seen over the years, well highlight common mistakes, clear up some misconceptions, and provide best practices to help you efficiently and effectively use Integration Services.

How Does the Data Flow Work?

• In-memory ETL engine
  • Really ELT rather than ETL
• Metadata set at design time, not runtime
  • Allows pre-calculations of sizes, etc…
• Data is moved through the pipeline in buffers

Chose the Right Transforms

• Synchronous
  • 1 output row for every input row
• Asynchronous
  • Any changes to the buffer shape. Like a Union ALL
• Beware of blocking transforms like Sort and Aggregate
• Take advantage of your database engine
  • ORDER BY …
  • SELECT INTO …

Don’t do lots of sorts in SSIS, do them in the Source DB input. The DB server is much more efficient at this.

What are Configurations?

• Allow you to externalize settings
• Change behavior without modifying the package
• Multiple configuration sources
  • XML and SQL Server are the most common

Configurations can be added after project creation. Launch the configuration wizard. These are design time configurations.

Using /SET (Used with Runtime configurations)

• DTEXEC /SET
• Override values that don’t already have a configuration set
• Set connection strings
• Pass arguments to a package

Why Can’t I Share My Package?

• Package protection level
  • Encrypt {all|sensitive} with User Key
  • Encrypt {all|sensitive} with Password
  • Don’t Save Sensitive
  • Server Storage

How Do I Deploy My Packages?

Deployment – File System

• Deploy files using an MSI, or copied to a share
• XML configuration

Deployment – SQL Server (*Recommended*)

• Files are stored in MSDB
• Execution typically done with SQL Agent
  • Make use of Proxy Accounts
• Store configurations in SQL Server

Deployment – Package Store

• Deploys to the SSIS service
• Front end to File and SQL storage

What is the SSIS Service For?

• Not required for execution
  • Tracks running packages
  • Component cache
• Can manage multiple File or SQL locations
• Remote connections to the service will require DCOM security changes

How should I do Logging?

• Logging has to be enabled on the package
• Multiple logging destinations
  • SQL Server is most common
• Custom logging solutions

Package Execution Reports

• Available from Microsoft as a download for Reporting Services (SSRS)

How do I Handle Errors?

• Control Flow
  • Precedence constraints
  • Event Handlers
  • Events “bubble up” to parent
• Data Flow
  • Redirect error output

Using Expressions

• Set package properties
• Variable values
• Derived Column transform
• Conditional Split transform

Data Flow Expressions

• 32bit vs. 64bit
  • SSIS will install both 64bit and 32bit runtimes
  • BIDS is 32bit only
    • Only 32bit drivers will appear at design time
    • Use project setting for 64bit execution
  • Use configurations to switch providers
• Other Stuff
  • There are no MS 64bit Excel drivers
    • Use 32bit or 3rdparty
  • SSIS is an extensible platform

Resources

• SSIS Team Blog
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/
• Community Samples
  • http://www.codeplex.com/SQLSrvIntegrationSrv
• MSDN Portal Page
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc511477.aspx

SSIS is a great tool for transferring data from one data source to another, and for implementing complex ETL processes. However, for simple, straightforward data transfer tasks, creating SSIS packages by hand can be time-consuming and repetitious. By attending this session, you’ll learn how to automate data transfers from a source to a target using SSIS. You’ll see the steps necessary to create both the control flow and the data flow portions of an SSIS package using the API and C# code. You’ll also learn about altering existing packages programmatically. Specific attention will be given to the generation of data flows with the proper source and destination components. We’ll take a look at some of the open source solutions available for this, plus some “roll your own” options.

Session Specific blog entry: http://agilebi.com/cs/blogs/jwelch/archive/2009/03/27/sswug-business-intelligence-virtual-conference-and-sds.aspx

Common Scenarios for SSIS

• Doing a simple import to or export from a SQL Server table
• Moving data from server to server on a regular basis
• Performing complex ETL to transform data

Should You Automate?

• Does the process follow a consistent pattern?
• Do you need to perform the same operation against many tables?
• Do you have lots of packages that look exactly the same?
• If so, the answer is YES!

Automation Benefits

• DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) [why haven't I heard this TLA before?]
  • Save Time and Money
  • Reduces the chance of introducing bugs due to human error
• Can help enforce consistency in package design
• Speeds up repetitive, autopilot tasks

All these tools below are a revelation to me. This rocks!

SSIS API

• Benefits
  • Complete access to all the features of SSIS
  • You are in complete control
  • Control Flow manipulation is straightforward
• Drawbacks
  • Steep learning curve, but more examples and resources being published.
  • Data Flow manipulation is complex due to COM layer
  • Requires a lot of code to perform simple tasks

EzAPI

• Open source project from SSIS team
• Benefits
  • Vastly reduced amount of code to create packages
  • Automates much of the column mapping process
• Drawbacks
  • Hides some features of SSIS
  • Not under active development (Sounds like death to me)

Package Generation Sample

• Open source project from SSIS team
• Benefits
  • Command line interface
  • Good learning code
• Drawbacks
  • Only supports SQL Server, Excel, and flat files

MDDE Studio

• Open source project originally from Microsoft
• Benefits
  • Template based approach
  • Works with 2005
• Drawbacks
  • Not under active development
  • Only works with 2005

Project Vulcan

• Open source project from Microsoft
• Benefits
  • Uses XML files to drive package generation
  • Generates SSIS and SSAS objects
  • Active development team
• Drawbacks
  • Very complex, little to no documentation

Recommended Approach

• Simple Generation
  • Use EzAPI to minimize coding
  • Use the SSIS API for things EzAPI doesn’t expose
• Industrial Strength Generation
  • Evaluate MDDE and Vulcan to determine which one is closest to your requirements
  • Customize from there

Where To Start

• Control Flow is easiest to learn
• Data Flow is considerably more complex
  • Start with simple column mappings
• Review existing packages to get details
  • View XML for package
  • Load through the API and iterate through the package

Be Aware

• Many features in BIDS are implemented in the BIDS UI, not the SSIS object model
  • flat file metadata detection, automatic column mapping, etc.
• Script Tasks and Components are especially problematic
  • Pre-compiling scripts.
  • Don’t use if you don’t have to.

Considerations

• Should you automate?
  • Not a great choice if packages are rarely the same twice
  • Can you get the same results from templates?
• One time automation vs. recurring generation
  • Producing a “first pass” package can be a good accelerator
  • Recurring generation may limit flexibility, but can be more powerful

SSIS Automation Resources

• http://sqlsrvintegrationsrv.codeplex.com/
• http://sqlservermddestudio.codeplex.com/
• http://vulcan.codeplex.com/
• Blogs:
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/default.aspx
  • http://www.sqlis.com/category/Code-Development.aspx

This talk describes the new MERGE statement and Change Data Capture (CDC) feature introduced in SQL Server 2008, and how to take advantage of them in SQL Server Integration Services. Well cover the traditional ways of doing incremental data loads, and see how these new key features make the process a whole lot easier. If you’re interested in learning best practices for this new SQL Server 2008 functionality, you won’t want to miss this session!

CDC and Merge are new in SQL Server 2008

Also 2008 has improved SCD processing

Options to Capture Change

• Audit columns – created via triggers
• Log Scraping
• Full DB Diff compare

(New Options) Change Data Capture in SQL Server

• Changes captured from the log asynchronously
  • Really just integrated log scraping
• Tells you what changed at the source
• Enabled per table or DB
• CDC API’s provide access to change data

CDC Components

• CDC Tables
• Capture Job
• Cleanup Job
• API

Change Tracking

• Captures that a row was changed, but not the changed data
• Synchronous capture mechanism
• Less overhead for applications that do not require the historical information

Turn CDC on:

• sp_cdc_enable_db
• sp_cdc_enable_table
• LSN = Log Sequence Number
• Sp_cdc_generate_wrapper_function
  • Creates a custom function DDL for reading CDC data

Loading SSIS Package

• Source from the CDC Wrapper function
• Split on CDC operation
  • Insert
  • Update
  • Delete

Lookup Changes in SQL 2008

• Explicit cache modes
  • Full
  • Partial
  • None
• Cache connection manager

External Reference Data

• Joins can work but can be difficult to manage
• Instead, use the SSIS Lookup transform.

The MERGE Statement

• Single statement can deal with Inserts, Updates and Deletes all at once
• Use Cases
  • Conditionally insert or update rows in a target table
  • Synchronize two tables
• Built to perform

Using MERGE in SSIS (Execute SQL Tasks in SSIS)

• Stage
  • Store data in a temp table
• Optimize
  • Create indexes on join cols
  • Provides addtl perf benefits
• Execute
  • Run the MERGE SQL statement

When doing the insert, you must drop the FK constraints in the destination table.

Taking Advantage of MERGE

• Consume CDC data
• Update Dimensions
• Alternative to the Slowly Changing Dimension Wizard

Additional Resources

• SSIS Team Blog
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm
• Comparing Change Data Capture and Change Tracking
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280519.aspx
• Optimizing MERGE Statement Performance
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc879317.aspx
• MERGE Destination
  • http://www.codeplex.com/SQLSrvIntegrationSrv/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=19048

In this session, you’ll learn how to load a typical data warehouse in SSIS efficiently. You’ll start by seeing some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD) Wizard in SSIS and how you can get around some of the weaknesses including your own home-brewed solution. You’ll then see how to load a fact table using SSIS and how to make the common components scale.

Dimensional Modeling (See Dimensional Modeling 101 Notes)

• Data Separated into fact and dimension tables
• Dimension tables answer the pivot or where clause
  • Make as wide and descriptive as possible
  • Surrogate keys operate as unique ID for each row
  • Keep surrogate keys as small as possible
• Fact tables answer the what questions or select statement
  • Intersect all dimension tables
  • Surrogate keys from each dimension in this table
  • Measures are the “what” like Price, Quantity, Duration

The challenge is how you move the data from the OLTP (Relational) DB into the Data Warehouse.

Discusses SCD (Slowly Changing Data) Dimension types (Already here)

Don’t make everything Type two or your DB will bloat significantly. Also your reports would be more difficult to write.

Probably want to fix NULL values to be something. Use a Derived Column transform. Makes Nulls to be something like 0, Unknown, etc…

SCD Wizard Strengths

• SSIS transform that creates many other transforms conditionally
• Reduces design time of SCD load by 80%-90% to minutes per dimension
• Can be customized easily
• Compares differences between source and destination to find changes and new records
• Outputs:
• Type 0,1,2 update
• Inferred members
• New rows
• Duplicate rows

Historical Attribute Options – How do you want to set the expiration of historical records.

Problem with SCD Wizard is that any time you go back and change the configuration, all the output logic below it gets re-written. You lose what you created.

SCD Wizard Weaknesses

• Scalability -Generally up to about 50,000 records into the transform but varies based on number of updates
• Maintainability -After you customize, rerunning the wizard recreates all the transforms
• Uses OLE DB Command transforms for updates is row-level. Creates scalability issue here if lots of updates.

Making Your Own SCD Wizard

• Can use a Merge Join or Lookup Transform
  • If no match found, it is an insert (Ignore Errors)
• Lookup Transform will scale better than Merge Join but lacks parameterization
• Add a Conditional Split transform after Lookup to direct to insert, duplicate or update path

Additional Scalability

• Watch your Lookup Transformation for scalability issues (don’t cache too much!)
  • Potentially cache only the last 1 years worth of data with Partial Caching
  • Only cache columns needed
• Additional scalability can be reached by landing updates into a staging table
  • Then set-based update with an Execute SQL task.
• Checksum Transform can be used to detect changes across many columns
  • Or HASHBYTES T-SQL statement

Inferred Members

• Created during the fact load
  • A new Dim record is created using the value of “unknown” or NULL as a placeholder
  • The record is flagged as an inferred member

Slowly Changing Dimension Wizard

• SSIS transform that creates many other transforms conditionally
• Handles:
• Type 0 (fixed attribute)
• Type 1 (changing attribute)
• Type 2 (historical attribute)
• Inferred members
• Typically can address 80% of the business scenarios

SCD Wizard Strengths

• SSIS transform that creates many other transforms conditionally
• Reduces design time of SCD load by 80%-90% to minutes per dimension
• Can be customized easily
• Compares differences between source and destination to find changes and new records
• Outputs:
• Type 0,1,2 update
• Inferred members
• New rows
• Duplicate rows

SCD Wizard Weaknesses

• Scalability -Generally up to about 50,000 records into the transform but varies based on number of updates
• Maintainability -After you customize, rerunning the wizard recreates all the transforms
• Uses OLE DB Command transforms for updates is row-level. Creates scalability issue here if lots of updates.

Lookup Transform – Lookup source against target dimension table. Select ALL available lookup fields and alias at TARGET_ so you can match against them. Link by primary key. Ignore the failure of matches.

Then use a conditional split – If target PK is NULL it is a new record, else Update.

“Pretty much a pain in the butt to write.” – Brian Knight in reference to the else UPDATE piece from the conditional split.

Ugh…no transcript and this info is not in the slides. ARGH! Can’t remember it all.

Brian uses the Checksum source vs. Checksum destination to deal with the UPDATE referred to above, but not guaranteed to be unique.

Hashbytes on the other hand is more unique if you wish. But it does not work on numeric fields. Need to cast them.

Fact Table Loads

• Series of Lookup Transforms
  • In Type 2 Dimensions add WHERE EndDate IS NOT NULL
• Measures created Derived Column Transforms
• Aggregate transform to roll up the grain
• Lookup failure would create an inferred member or set to unknown

Are you a SQL Server DBA, Developer, Report Writer?
Do you align with a desire to spread God’s Word?
Do you love working in an evolving/energetic environment?

Yes? Well here’s  a neat opportunity.  The Seed Company is a Christian non-profit focused on Bible Translation. Based in Arlington, Texas in the heart of the D/FW metroplex they are seeking a multi-talented individual to fill a big need.

“The Seed Company is a faith-based, 501(c)3 organization committed to the vision of creatively networking God’s people around the world to translate the Bible into every language for His glory”

Here’s the info on the position.

Brief Description: Preserve and extend TSC staff capabilities through database development, administration, and reporting.

Responsibilities:

General:

1. Has servant heart, and a desire to make others more effective in their work.
2. Good interpersonal skills.
3. Strong written and verbal communication skills.
4. Ability to understand user needs and to design database solutions appropriate to those needs.
5. Familiarity with computer networking and security issues.
6. Familiarity with server administration and backup/restore techniques.
7. Ability to document routine tasks.
8. Working knowledge of Microsoft Access, Windows Server and Microsoft Office products.
9. Working knowledge of web technologies.

Specific:

1. Ability to develop and maintain data dictionaries and data models/ schemas.
2. Ability to design and maintain reports and reporting environments.
3. Ability to design and implement user interfaces for data entry and reporting.
4. Ability to design and maintain integration (ETL, SSIS) with other database systems.
5. Knowledge of tools for database design, performance monitoring and user interface development.
6. Thorough understanding of SQL Server and reporting tools.

The position is full-time and will be out of the Arlington, Texas office. There are a number of neat initiatives going on including moving to an SSRS reporting environment (SSRS 2008), the potential to start into Data Warehousing, data integration and automation with a number of internal and external information systems.

Interested parties should contact:

Dave Mutchler
dave_mutchler@tsco.org
(817)-557-2121

Corporate Headquarters

The Seed Company
3030 Matlock Rd. Suite 104
Arlington TX 76015
USA
view map
Phone (817) 557-2121
Toll Free (877)593-7333

Contact Info: Email resumes with cover letter to: dave_mutchler@tsco.org

Business Type: Bible Translation

Comments: The Seed Company is an affiliate of Wycliffe Bible Translators and seeks to make employment decisions in accordance with applicable federal and state employment discrimination laws and regulations. As a religious organization, The Seed Company is entitled to make employment decisions on the basis of religious beliefs and practices of the applicant or employee. All positions require a personal commitment to Christ, evidenced by personal testimony and identification with a local church.

In SQL 2008, Maintenance Plans create a workflow of tasks to ensure your database is optimized and backed up on a regular schedule. The Maintenance Plan will create an SSIS package that will be scheduled and run with SQL Agent. Attend this session and learn how Maintenance Plans will ease your administrative overhead.

Common Tasks

• Database backups
• Database Integrity checks
• Index Maintenance
• Automated Cleanup

Creating New Plans

• Maintenance Plan Wizard
• Maintenance Plan Design
• Must be member of sysadmin fixed server role

Important Tasks to Deal With

• Backup Database
• Reorganize Index (fragmentation level < 30%, Reorg)
• Rebuild Index (fragmentation level > 30%, Rebuild)
• Update Statistics
• Check Database Integrity (DBCC CHECKDB)
  • Also validates indexes in SQL Server 2008
• History Cleanup
  • Cleans information inside information Sys DB’s
• Maintenance Cleanup (MSDB)
  • Cleans up after maintenance plans themselves
  • Or Backup files, logs, etc…

“Failure to plan for a disaster is inexcusable.” – Thomas LaRock

Schedules will depend upon your organizational needs.

Recommended Practices

• Create separate plans for system versus user databases
  • Yes, System DB’s need to be backed up and able to be restored!
• Tasks should be run at non-peak hours (Duh!) 
  • Be sure to check for other running tasks, like reporting or ETL loads.
• Do not automate the Shrink Database task
  • Really? Do use it period according to Thomas!
• Perform database backups prior to other maintenance tasks
  • Back them up before you start touching anything even in a maintenance plan.
  • Always have a “comfortable” restore point.

MultiServer Management

• Configure a SQL Server Agent to be a “Master”
• Specify Target
• Define new Multi-Server jobs or
• Convert existing Local Job to multi-server.
  • Right click
  • See Target tab. Use it.

FYI, the job only shows on the Master. It does not show in the target server job list.

“Since it’s a demo, we need everything to work.” – Thomas LaRock – Great quote. Too bad it didn’t work.

Additional Resources

• http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187658.aspx