SQLUG.be

12 hours of SQL Server 2012 on Feb, 24th

Frederik — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:41:00 GMT

Welcome to the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012, the next release of the Microsoft Cloud-Ready Information Platform that is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2012. During the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012 we'll walk you through all the new innovations we're bringing to the platform, or as we call them "The Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012". Together with our 12 speakers, both local and international, we'll deliver 12 webcasts over 12 hours starting 12:12 CET on February 24th (too bad February 12th is a Sunday).

We'll dive into all the new things around Business Intelligence, Tier-1 Performance & Reliability, the Manageability enhancements and of course the Cloud readiness and integration of SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure.

Make sure to Register Today and explore the next release of SQL Server 2012 together with us.
By following at least 5 sessions, you get a chance to win a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone!

Technet Livemeeting - What’s New in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for SSIS, Nov 3rd

Frederik — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:23:00 GMT

This session shows off the new features of Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services in SQL Server code-named “Denali”. We will highlight the migration process and the benefits of the new SSIS server architecture. We cover the many improvements made to increase developer productivity,as well as the enhancements to the current configuration,deployment,and management experiences.

Speaker Wesley Backelant

Registration info: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032495615&Culture=nl-BE

TechNet Live Meeting - How many nines do we need? Introducing SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn on Oct 25

Frederik — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:15:00 GMT

With natural disasters like earthquakes and fires in the news so often, and the economy still struggling to stabilize, IT Professionals know that many disasters can shut down a SQL Server.

Microsoft has already implemented a lot of high availability solutions in previous editions of SQL Server, like failover clustering, database mirroring, log shipping,... But,when it comes to high availability, Denali changes the game for SQL Server deployments by introducing SQL Server AlwaysOn. You can increase application availability and get a better return on your hardware investments through a simplified high availability deployment and management experience.

In this session you will see the key capabilities and concepts of Database Availability and Instance Availability, deploying availability groups, configuration Application Failover using a Virtual Name, Initiating a failover to the secondary and possibilities with the active secondary.

Speaker Pieter Vanhove

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2:00 PM

Level 300

Database Mirroring, Microsoft Clustering and Virtualization - 27/10/2011

Frederik — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:10:00 GMT

Our next session is planned for October, 27th: "Database Mirroring, Microsoft Clustering and Virtualization" with three seasoned SQL Server professionals.
Ludo Bernaerts (Belgacom), Karel Coenye (Kohera) and Peter De Seranno (bPost) will bring you 3 different types of solutions for your HA/DR plan for SQL Server 2008 (R2): Database mirroring, Microsoft clustering and virtualization.

You can expect an overview by technology followed by question time & panel discussion.

About The Speakers
Ludo Bernaerts, Karel Coenye and Peter De Seranno are seasond SQL Server professionals.

Some details will follow.

Agenda:

18:00	Registration
18:30	Session Start
21:00	Session End

Location:
Microsoft België
Corporate Village
Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3
1935 Zaventem

Tel: +32.2.503.31.13
Fax: +32.2.704.35.35

This Event is brought to you by Microsoft

Click here to register

Locking during debugging stored procedure in Visual Studio 2005

Steve — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:03:00 GMT

I had this weird situation for almost two days whilst debugging a stored procedure in Visual Studio 2005. Just after a few minutes, over and over again at the same line, I got an error popping up:

Failed to retrieve data for this request.
Lock request time out period exceeded.

So obviously it had something to do with locking which is not unusal but it shouldn't give me an error from within Visual Studio right?

I'm working on a standalone instance here, so no interferance from other applications or people with open connections in SSMS.

When I looked at the Activity Monitor in SSMS, I could see a LCK_M_S key lock caused by the query below which is not part of my stored procedure(It almost looks like Visual Studio is executing this query).

SELECT
db_name() AS [Database_Name],
udf.name AS [Name],
SCHEMA_NAME(udf.schema_id) AS [Schema],
udf.object_id AS [ID],
CAST(
 case 
  when udf.is_ms_shipped = 1 then 1
  when (
    select 
      major_id 
    from 
      sys.extended_properties 
    where 
      major_id = udf.object_id and 
      minor_id = 0 and 
      class = 1 and 
      name = N'microsoft_database_tools_support') 
    is not null then 1
  else 0
end     
       AS bit) AS [IsSystemObject],
CAST(CASE WHEN ISNULL(smudf.definition, ssmudf.definition) IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS bit) AS [IsEncrypted],
(case when 'FN' = udf.type then 1 when 'FS' = udf.type then 1 when 'IF' = udf.type then 3 when 'TF' = udf.type then 2 when 'FT' = udf.type then 2 else 0 end) AS [FunctionType],
usrt.name AS [DataType],
sret_param.name AS [DataTypeSchema],
ISNULL(baset.name, N'') AS [SystemType],
CAST(CASE WHEN baset.name IN (N'nchar', N'nvarchar') AND ret_param.max_length <> -1 THEN ret_param.max_length/2 ELSE ret_param.max_length END AS int) AS [Length],
CAST(ret_param.precision AS int) AS [NumericPrecision],
CAST(ret_param.scale AS int) AS [NumericScale],
case when amudf.object_id is null then N'' else asmbludf.name end AS [AssemblyName],
case when amudf.object_id is null then N'' else amudf.assembly_class end AS [ClassName],
case when amudf.object_id is null then N'' else amudf.assembly_method end AS [MethodName],
CASE WHEN udf.type IN ('FN','IF','TF') THEN 1 WHEN udf.type IN ('FS','FT') THEN 2 ELSE 1 END AS [ImplementationType]
FROM
sys.all_objects AS udf
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.sql_modules AS smudf ON smudf.object_id = udf.object_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.system_sql_modules AS ssmudf ON ssmudf.object_id = udf.object_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.all_parameters AS ret_param ON ret_param.object_id = udf.object_id and ret_param.is_output = 1
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.types AS usrt ON usrt.user_type_id = ret_param.user_type_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.schemas AS sret_param ON sret_param.schema_id = usrt.schema_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.types AS baset ON baset.user_type_id = ret_param.system_type_id and baset.user_type_id = baset.system_type_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.assembly_modules AS amudf ON amudf.object_id = udf.object_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.assemblies AS asmbludf ON asmbludf.assembly_id = amudf.assembly_id
WHERE
(udf.type in ('TF', 'FN', 'IF', 'FS', 'FT'))
ORDER BY
[Database_Name] ASC,[Schema] ASC,[Name] ASC

The query started to show up in the Activity Monitor as soon as I expanded the stored procedure node from the Server Explorer pane where you connect to a database. I guess Visual Studio 2005 uses the info from the resultset to build the nodes in the Server Explorer/Database connection.

I started experimenting with the Visual Studio settings including the time out setting but I didn't make any progress until I decided to switch to Visual Studio 2010.
The query responsable for the locking did no longer appear.

Denali - Import Text Editor settings from Visual Studio

Steve — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:26:00 GMT

Up until SQL Server 2008 R2, you had to customize the font and background colors manually in SSMS.

SQL Server Denali lets you import your Visual Studio settings such as the custom colors in the Text Editor.
The fact that the Denali SSMS splash screen shows Powered By Visual Studio probably has a lot to do with that.

In Visual Studio go to Options, Environment, Import and Export Settings and copy the location where your settings are stored with the .vssettings extension.

Next open SSMS, go to Options, Environment, Import and Export Settings and locate your .vssettings file you copied from Visual Studio using the team settings file option.

Dive into the Summer with TechNet

Steve — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:28:00 GMT

What about some light reading on virtualizing SQL Server during the holidays whilst sipping a nice cocktail?

Sure, your wife might be rolling her eyes when she sees you reading a Hyper-V whitepaper but hey, nowadays virtualized SQL Servers are everywhere so virtualization has become a technology that needs to be mastered by SQL Server experts as well and not only by system administrators.

TechNet has started its summer campaign with the first part on virtualization. You won't have to spend the entire afternoon by the swimming pool reading white papers. There's material for the ones having only half an hour to spend, half a day and a full day (be careful on the cocktails!)

A good document to start with is Hyper-V Getting Started Guide followed by Hyper-V : Using Hyper-V and Failover Clustering and Virtualizing SQL Workloads

Read why Hyper-V is the Best Virtualization Solution for SQL Server Whitepaper which covers the advantages over VMware such as performance, high availability, management, monitoring and costs.

Read all about SQL Server in a virtualized environment here.

Happy holidays!

Announcing Belgian SQL Server Days on November 14th and 15th

Frederik — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:22:00 GMT

Yes, you read well, DAYS. SQL Server day has become a household name when you talk about SQL Server technology. And this year we go big, really big. Off course we'd like to welcome you again and hopefully snow won't be a kill-joy on this year's edition. Our team is working really hard on building the agenda so keep an eye on www.sqlserverdays.be for more information.

TechNet Live Meeting : Database Mirroring on SQL Server 2008 R2

Frederik — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:07:00 GMT

Database mirroring was introduced since Microsoft SQL Server 2005. It can be used to design high-availability and high-performance solutions for database redundancy. It is designed to maintain a hot standby server with a transitionally consistent copy of the database. Mirroring is cost-effective, speedy, requires no special hardware, and ensures transactional consistency. This live meeting will describe the database mirroring components, the different modes of database mirroring, failure types, failure scenarios, how it is different from other technologies and client redirection. Also a demo on how to setup databases mirroring with GUI and T-SQL will be shown.

Speaker: Pieter Vanhove (Kohera)

Time: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 2:00 PM

Registration: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032487684&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution - Slides available

karim — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:58:00 GMT

Last thursdya we had an exilirating presentation made by Marco Russo. The slide deck is available for download here.

Community Day 2011

karim — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:51:00 GMT

Community Day is back with the Fifth Edition of this annual community event on Microsoft technologies!

14 Microsoft User Groups combine their efforts to organize this unique networking and knowledge sharing

event.

Microsoft Community Day will take place on Thursday 23th June 2011 in Utopolis, Mechelen.

Click here for more details.

Be careful with cloned VMs of SQL Server production servers

Steve — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:03:00 GMT

Imagine this,

You're handed a new clean and crisp full functioning copy of a SQL Server production server VM which you can use to experiment with.

Of course the clone has a new computer name. You might want to execute a select @@servername to see what the actual name is which is used by SQL Server itself.
Unless the original server has been dropped from table sysservers en replaced with the new server name, you will still see the server name of the production server.

Now, be very carefull when executing statements on the cloned VM where @@servername is used in the code. Sometimes the @@servername variable is used to dynamically build file paths...

Use the following statements to change the server name:

sp_dropserver <'old_name\instancename'>

sp_addserver <'new_name\instancename'>, local

Also check: Rename a computer that hosts a stand-alone instance of SQL Server

!= gets converted to <> in Query Designer

Steve — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:51:00 GMT

One of my colleagues today asked me why != is accepted in a query but gets automatically converted into <> when it's written using the Query Designer.

I didn't have an immediate answer but found out that some of the server-specific syntax gets converted into ANSI standard syntax.

No, it's not a bug!

MSDN Live Meeting : SQLServer self-service BI on May 10th

Frederik — Wed, 04 May 2011 06:19:00 GMT

In this fast paced and ever changing world, insight in your company’s data becomes more and more crucial to stay ahead.
Power users need this insight in data now, not in the next week or month. Due to this trend, BI has to evolve into a more mobile, quick and personal approach.
Microsoft addresses this need for self-service BI for Power Users with Report Builder 3.0 and PowerPivot.
This session gives you a quick overview of the SQL Server BI stack and introduces you to the concepts of self-service BI.

Speaker : Luc Lemaire

Full details and registration info can be found here.

Next SQLUG.be event - PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution - May 19th with Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari

Frederik — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:02:00 GMT

We are very proud to announce our next event: PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution on May 19th with Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari

The next version of Analysis Services will offer the BI Semantic Model (BISM) that is based on Vertipaq, the same engine that runs PowerPivot. DAX and PowerPivot have been created as tools for Excel users but in Denali they will be available on the Corporate BI stack technology for Microsoft, as part of Analysis Services.

The impact of this technology is huge, because many assumption that are made today for an OLAP cube (star schema models, surrogate keys and so on) might be no longer the optimal way to design a complete BI solution.

This session is about this impelling change: after an initial introduction about PowerPivot, DAX and Vertipaq changes that are relevant to this topic and some consideration about design impact on Data Warehouse, Data Mart and ETL pipeline, the session will become an open discussion with all attendees, in order to share experience, needs, technical challenges and understand future directions in corporate BI world.

About The Speakers

About Marco Russo:
Marco Russo is a Business Intelligence consultant and mentor.
His main activities are related to data warehouse relational and multidimensional design, but he is also involved in the complete development lifecycle of a BI solution. He has particular competence and experience in sectors like financial services (including complex olap designs in banking area), manufacturing and commercial distribution.
Marco is also a book author and, apart from his BI-related publications, he also wrote some books about .NET programming. He is also a speaker in international conferences like European PASS Conference and PASS Summit. He is an MCT and has several certifications (MCPD, MCIP, MCTS, MCAD and MCDBA).
Blog | Twitter | Linkedin

About Alberto Ferrari:
Alberto Ferrari is a Business Intelligence consultant.
He his interests lie in two main areas: BI development lifecycle methodologies and performance tuning of ETL and SQL code. His main activities are with SSIS and SSAS for the banking, manufacturing and statistical sectors.
He is also a speaker in international conferences like European PASS Conference and PASS Summit.
Blog | Twitter | Linkedin

Location:

The Oak3 Campus - Brussels
Telecom Gardens
Medialaan 36
1800 Vilvoorde

This Event is brought to you by Kohera

As usual the event is free, but registration is required.

Slide Deck and SQL scripts available for SQL Server Locking: Taking back control of SQL Server

Steve — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:15:00 GMT

Allright, the slide deck and SQL scripts came in today from last week's event: SQL Server Locking: Taking back control of SQL Server by Marc Mertens.

Download them from the media gallery and enjoy!

Setup SSRS in SharePoint Integrated Mode

Steve — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:07:00 GMT

This post is about configuring SQL Server Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated mode the quick and clean way with no fuzz in 40 steps.

I'm not discussing the default values, I will only talk about the values which need to be changed or selected in order to get SSRS set up in the least amount of steps.

The scenario:

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition + named instance SQL Server 2008 Express Edition which is deployed during the SharePoint setup. Name of the SQL Server instance: SHAREPOINT.
Separate default SQL Server 2008 R2 instance (Enterprise Edition).
SSRS currently installed in native mode on the SQL Server 2008 R2 default instance.
AdventureWorksDW2008R2 hosted on the SQL Server 2008 R2 default instance.

The procedure contains 5 parts:

A. SSRS Configuration {SQL Server}

B. Web application {SharePoint}

C. Site collection {SharePoint}

D. SSRS integration {SharePoint}

E. Content types {SharePoint}

Let's start!

A. SSRS Configuration {SQL Server}

Log on to your SharePoint 2010 box.
Fire up the SQL Server Reporting Services Configuration Manager.
Connect to the Report Server instance. In my case this is the default SQL Server 2008 R2 instance (MSSQLSERVER)
The first thing you will notice is the Report Server Status. Check the Report Server Mode. It should say Native (we start from native mode in this scenario).
Click Database in the left pane.Click Change Database. Select Create a new report server database.
Enter the proper credentials.
Enter a database name and select SharePoint Integrated mode.
Enter the credentials and do not forget the <domain name>\<username> (.\<username> will do as well).
Choose Report Manager URL in the left pane and click the apply button. This will configure the Report Manager virtual directory.
Backup the encryption keys.

B. Web application {SharePoint}

Open the SharePoint Central Administration website.
Choose Application Management > Manage web applications.
Click the New button in the ribbon. This will bring up the Create new web application popup.
Keep the default values to keep things simple except for:
1. Choose a name for the new IIS Website. I will choose SSRSDemo in this example.
2. Choose a name for the application pool. I will again choose SSRSDemo.
3. Make sure you connect to the right database instance. In my example I will connect to the named SQL Server 2008 Express Edition instance named SHAREPOINT.
4. Choose a database name or keep the default value with the GUID suffix. I will call the database WSS_Content_SSRSDemo.
5. Hold your horses before you hit the OK button when this information pops up:

The Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web application has been created.

If this is the first time that you have used this application pool with a SharePoint Web application, you must wait until the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site has been created on all servers. By default, no new SharePoint site collections are created with the Web application. If you have just created a Forms Based Authentication (FBA) Web application, then before creating a new site collection, you will need to perform some additional configuration steps.

Learn about how to configure a Web application for FBA.

Once you are finished, to create a new site collection, go to the Create Site Collection page.

5. Click Create Site Collection page to move on to C. Site collection {SharePoint}

C. Site collection {SharePoint}

Enter a title for the site collection. SSRSDemo for example.
Choose a template. I will choose Business Intelligence Center because I want to store my SSRS reports in a BI related environment.
Enter a username for Primary Collection Administrator. Make sure you enter the full domain name. e.g.: <domain name>\<username> (.\username won't work here).

D. SSRS integration {SharePoint}

Go to the SharePoint Central Administration website > General Application Settings > Reporting Services > Reporting Services Integration.
Enter the Report Server Web Service URL which you can find the SQL Server Reporting Services Configuration Manager.
Choose the Authentication Mode. I will choose Windows Authentication. Entering .\<username> will do.
Go to the SharePoint Central Administration website > General Application Settings > Reporting Services > Add a Report Server to the Integration.
The server name should already be provided and enter the name of the SQL Server instance which hosts the report server database.
Enter the credentials.

E. Upload a report {SharePoint}

Open your new top level web site we created in C. Site collection {SharePoint}
In case you forgot the URL of the web site, go to SharePoint Central Administration > Web Application and look for the URL.
Go to All site Content > Documents.
In the ribbon, go to Library Tools > Library.
Click Library Settings.
Click Advanced Settings.
In Content Types, check Yes for Allow Management of content types and click OK.
In the columns section, click Add from existing site columns.
In the Select site columns from drop-down box, select Report Server Content Types.
Select all available site content types and click the Add button followed by OK.
Go back to All site content > Documents.
Click the Add Document link.
Browse for a Report provided by the AdventureWorksDW200R2 samples from CodePlex.
Enter a title for the report.

There is also the option to create a report yourself if you don't have the reports from the sample reports. It only takes a few seconds to create a report using the Report Builder (see screenshot below).

You have now finished the complete setup. Click the report you have uploaded to view the result.

TechDays 2011 - Ask The Experts

Steve — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:16:00 GMT

I will be joining the people at Ask The Experts at TechDays 2011 in Belgium, 26 to 28 April. So, bring your SQL Server questions to the Ask The Experts corner and we will have a look.

See you there!

The workshop you need to master PowerPivot!

Steve — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:16:00 GMT

The PowerPivot Workshop is coming to the Kohera/Oak3 Campus in Brussels on 19-20 May, 2011. All attendees will receive a copy of the new book "Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning" authored by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari, who are the trainers of the workshop.

This 2-day intensive course is aimed to IT professionals and Excel power users (Information Workers) who want to take the most out of PowerPivot. The course will cover all aspects of PowerPivot, from basics to the most advanced topics, including an extensive coverage of the new DAX language, which will be also used by BISM (BI Semantic Model) in the next version of Analysis Services.

Full details and registration information can be found on http://www.powerpivotworkshop.com.

Kohera is the exclusive authorized training center for the PowerPivot Workshop in Belgium. Keep an eye on our website for more announcements on the PowerPivot workshop in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions regarding this workshop or PowerPivot in general, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@kohera.be.

PowerPivot Workshop in Brussels

Steve — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:24:00 GMT

The PowerPivot Workshop is coming to Brussels on 19-20 May, 2011. All attendees will receive a copy of the new book "Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning" authored by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari, who are the trainers of the workshop.

This 2-day intensive course is aimed to IT professionals and Excel power users (Information Workers) who want to take the most out of PowerPivot.

The course will cover all aspects of PowerPivot, from basics to the most advanced topics, including an extensive coverage of the new DAX language, which will be also used by BISM (BI Semantic Model) in the next version of Analysis Services.

You can get more information and register on www.powerpivotworkshop.com.

Don't wait, seats are limited!

SQL Server Locking: Take back control of SQL Server brought to you by Marc Mertens

Steve — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:53:00 GMT

SQL Server Locking - 31/03/2011

We are happy to announce the second event of 2011, SQL Server Locking: Take back control of SQL Server brought to you by Marc Mertens.

Check here for details and registration.

SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database: Slides and Scripts

Steve — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:56:00 GMT

Slides and scripts of last weeks session SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database have been put available for download.

Check out Tom Van Zele's blog and download the files

SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database: Slides and Scripts

Steve — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:39:00 GMT

Slides and scripts of last weeks session SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database have been put available for download.

Check out Tom Van Zele's blog and download the files

TechDays 2011

Steve — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:56:00 GMT

TechDays 2011 is coming up in April, 26 to 28.

Dandy Weyn (Blog | Twitter), Microsoft will speak about SQL Server Denali and upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server Denali.

Discount for early birds has runs until February 28th

Techdays Early Bird Registrations

karim — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:55:00 GMT

You might have noticed that Microsoft is currently publishing a lot of new sessions to their TechDays site.

If you didn't notice yet, just visit techdays.be to have a look at the session listings.

The bird pricing will end on February 28th, So be quick and save your seat today!!!!