Chris Testa-O'Neill

"Give with Bing" - Help raise money for Sports relief while searching for whatever you want

Testas — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:59:00 GMT

While Sport Relief drives fundraising by challenging people to do physical activities such as running a mile, we’re introducing the ‘Bing Search Mile,’ which gives people the ability to search using Bing and raise money for charity.

For every 10 searches made, Bing.com will donate 5p to Sport Relief 2010, enabling you, and your friends and family, to raise money just by searching with Bing until the end of March. With the average mile taking about 10 minutes to run, in the same time, you can make up to 150 searches online - that’s 75p raised for a good cause per ‘search mile’. And while you’re at it, why not step it up a gear and aim to complete a ‘Search Mile’ each day or even a ‘Search Marathon’ over the 5 week campaign with your colleagues, friends and family? How to get involved: 1. Visit GiveWithBing.com and download the Official Sport Relief Bing Counter. Once downloaded, the Sport Relief counter will count all the searches you do on Bing from that point on. 2. Now that you’re registered (and signed in), invite your friends, family, colleagues or classmates to join in the fundraising with you – GiveWithBing.com automatically generates an email explaining how it works for you to send them – the more people who search with you, the more money you raise. People can also register a school 3. Run your ‘search mile’ every day and watch how your searches turn into life-changing cash for charity, with every 10 searches equalling 5p for Sport Relief. You can check your progress by visiting your individual page (more info here). This is such a positive initiative and I challenge everyone in the UK to invite their key contacts to be part of Give with Bing.

Chris

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition will still allow multiple instances

Testas — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:54:00 GMT

Over a number of months I have had students on courses and members of the community express concerns over the new release of SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition. They have been given the impression that with the new release they would only be entitled to 1 instance per processor license due the release of two new editions in SQL Server 2008 R2 known as Data Centre Edition and Parallel Data Warehouse Edition

Being at the MVP Summit last week gave me the opportunity to speak directly with the SQL Server team who led me to a resource that confirms that SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition will still allow multiple instance of SQL Server. Specifically 25 instance per processor license. While this is lower that the 50 instance that are currently allowed in SQL Server 2008, I know that this news will certainly ease the concerns that some of you, who have asked this question.

You also have the ability to run 4 vurtual machines on this edition.

The link for this information can be found here

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/B/6/7B65BDD8-9D5E-42A5-A8AA-AD61FD8265E2/SQLServer2008R2EditionsDatasheet.pdf

If you require more instance or virtual machines, then consideration should be given to using Data Center Edition of SQL Server 2008 R2.

More information can be founnd here

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2-editions.aspx

Thanks

Chris

SQLServerFAQ organisers speaking at Vbug

Testas — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:41:00 GMT

Just to let you know we have not forgotten about Manchester and Leeds, Sessions have been put up for manchester and we are finalising the venue as I write this. We are also looking for a Leeds venue, any members who can help would be gratefully recieved

In the interim, Martin Bell and Myself are speaking at Vbug..... details below

VBUG MANCHESTER MEETING

WED 3^RD MARCH 6.30pm

Table Valued Parameter - good, bad or just plain ugly? with Martin Bell

Passing arrays to stored procedures has never been easy! With the release of SQL Server 2008 and the new Table Valued Parameter feature have we now got an easy solution to this problem or do they still suck? Martin will look at what options are available in the different versions of SQL Server and compares the performance and practicalities of using each one.

End to End Report Creation and Management in SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 with Chris Test-O'Neill

With Reporting Services 2008, Microsoft takes a step forward in presenting SQL Server as an enterprise data platform. Innovations in data regions, vast improvements in visualisation, and a new Report Designer, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services provides a tool that can be used by all members in the organization.

This session will begin on Installation issues. You will walk through the authoring, management and delivery of reports, focusing on the new features of Reporting Services 2008, creating a report in the new report designer. Raising awareness of Report management options and the delivery mechanisms to deliver reports.

To register and for more details go to http://www.vbug.co.uk/Events/March-2010/VBUG-Manchester--relaunch-event-with-two-guest-speakers.aspx

Having problems generating a report model from a data source in SharePoint Server

Testas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:52:00 GMT

Microsoft has released a hotfix that should alleviate this problem which applies when you generate a report model from a data source within SharePoint Server 2007 and 3.0

When you generate the model the following error is returned "Server was unable to process request. ---> The operation has timed out"

For the hotfix and further information use the following link

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956213/EN-US

Thanks

Chris

SQLBits goes west videos are available on the SQLBits site

Testas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:31:00 GMT

Hi all

For anyone who attended SQLBits goes west at the Celtic Manor in Newport, I am sure you will agree it was the best SQLBits to date and I am very much looking forward to the next installment. The videos are available for you to view to recap on the sessions you attended or the sessions you missed.

For those who did not attend, I would recommend that you grab a coffee, and popcorn if you so wish and browse the library of videos available. They are definately worth a look. However, after you watch these, I hope I see you at the next SQLBits

http://www.sqlbits.com/News.aspx?Title=SQLBits%20Videos%20available%20now%20available

Chris

Data Driven Subscriptions in SQL Server reporting Services

Testas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:31:00 GMT

Happy new year to everyone, sorry for the delay in my blogs as I have had family matters to attend to over christmas

Thanks as well for the many well wishes I have recieved about the MVP award I have recieved, it is truly an honour.

Last year I was asked by a number of people about allowing end users to take control of data driven subscriptions in SQL Server Reporting Services

I put forward the suggestion through Microsoft Connect and got the response below

Data driven subscriptions enables report server admininstrators to control the subscriptions that are created within reporting Services. This involves the creation of a table within SQL Server that holds the subscription information that is queried when a data driven subscription is executed, As a result administrators create and set up data driven subscriptions.

I have been asked if this feature could be provided to trusted business users to manage, freeing up report server administrators time to concentrate on other Administration issue.

Here is the response

"Greetings from Microsoft Connect!

This notification was generated for feedback item: Enabling Data Driven Subscriptions to be Managed by Power Users which you submitted at the Microsoft Connect site.

Thank you for filing this issue. We will look at it as a potential design change for a future version.

In the meantime, there are sevearl things you could do to work around this on your side, or provide such a UI.

First, creating and managing data driven subscriptions is determined by the Report Server Manage Any Subscription permission. I know your request is to have a dedicated role. However, it can still be possible to assign the existing role to the appropriate users on the appropriate items in RS.

Second, I believe you want the business power user to be able to enter the rows of data that the delivery query will return from a web UI. There are several way of accomodating this. Option one is if you are using SharePoint Integrated Mode, the user could put the data in a SharePoint List and then use the list as a data source. A SharePoint List data extension will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and works when you are in SharePoint Integrated Mode (available first half 2010). Option two is to roll your own UI page that stores the user's values as an XML file which is exposed by a webservice. Our existing XML data extension can connect to the web service and retrieve the data. You would probably need to provide a custom UI application which enabled this more easily. You can follow this same pattern using an Atom ata Feed with the XML data extension.

Thanks,
-Lukasz"

Thanks

Chris

Creating a Report Template in SSRS 2000/2005/2008

Testas — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:14:00 GMT

If the reports that you create for your organisation contains common items, perhaps images such as company logos, or report properties such as language or pagination settings. You can create a report template that can then be called from within Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)

1. Create a Project and Report within BIDS.....make a note of the project location for your BIDS project

2. Add the components to the report that you want to include in the report template, then save the report, close down BIDS

3. In Windows Explorer, browse to the project folder and copy the report

4. Paste the report to the following location

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ReportProjects

To use the template you have created

1. Create a Project within BIDS

2. Right Click the Report folder, point to Add and then click on New item

3. Within the Add New Item dialogue box, your report template appears, select the template and define a name in the name text

You report template is added to the report with the objects presented that you added when you created the report

Report Builder 3 and PowerPivot is going to move Microsoft forward in the BI market

Testas — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:08:00 GMT

A number of features have been introduced which makes exciting times to be working in BI

Report Builder 3 with the integration of Maps and sparkline data regions is well worth a look. check out Andrew Fryers piece here.

http://blogs.technet.com/andrew/pages/using-sql-server-2008-r2-report-builder-3-with-bing-maps.aspx

Powerpivot also provides excellent analystical capabilities within SharePoint and Microsoft Excel. Check out www.PowerPivot.com

I am working on demo for these at the moment and will let you know once they are available

Chris

Limit the active number of connections within Reporting Services

Testas — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:28:00 GMT

November has been a busy month with the conference season.......Teched and SQLBits which I attended and of course PASS,

and I will provide an update on these in my next blog

A quick tip as a result from a question from a customer who wanted to restrict the amount of connections that a user can have to a report server that is to be hosted on an extranet.

You can limit the number of active requests per user by editing the following key within the RSReportServer config file located in

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.INSTANCE\Reporting Services\ReportServer

The default value is 20 and can be changed to a number that suits your requirements

Thanks

Chris

Get on the Bus (Born to Learn) evening - York

Testas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:06:00 GMT

Microsoft must be extremely happy with the turnout to the Get on the Bus/Born to Learn sessions at York University this evening. Andrew Bettany and his team at the University should be congratulated for a fantastic evening surrounding Windows 7, Exchange 2010, Windows 2008 R2 and SBS 2008. Furthermore, tonight’s attendance I hope will encourage more Microsoft events in this part of the World.

I appreciate that this post may not be a SQL Server post, but it does no harm at all to view the technologies on which SQL Server will sit or work with and as an MCSE in Windows 2000 and 2003 I very much like the crammed approached to the new features with the little time I have.

Tjeerd Veninga opened proceedings with an overview of the new features of Windows 7, an OS I which quite frankly rocks! David Elfassy looked at messaging management in the latest installment of Exchange, and Liberty Munson provided an entertaining session of quick fire questions surrounding Microsoft Certification.

James O'Neill presented the key features of Windows Server 2008 with David Oulverton providing the SBS highlights.

Overall a great evening enjoyed by all! The tour continues throughout Europe and more information can be found at http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/thebus/tour-dates

I also managed to get some swag for the Manchester and Leeds SQL Server User group, will keep you posted and update the agenda for the forthcoming December dates!

Chris

Leeds SQL Server User Group Slide Deck - October 1st 2009

Testas — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:37:00 GMT

Apologies for the delays in getting the slide deck out to the attendees of this User Group

I have had trouble connecting to the folders on the site to up load the files. That mighty fine fellow, Martin Bell, has very

kindly placed them on his site for you to download.

I look forward to seeing you in Manchester this Thursday for the Reporting Services Evening

If you are not aware of it, check out www.SQLServerFAQ.com to register for this event

SQLBits, SQLPass,and TechEd EMEA running in November will mean that the next Manchester SQL Server UG after Thursday

will be December. Also the Leeds UG has a great session coming up on the Service Broker and PowerShell as well

Should be a great night!

Chris

The front cover of SQL Server Magazine's latest issue

Testas — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:44:00 GMT

For those of you that don't read SQL Server Magazine, I would recommend that you get it. It is a fantastic magazine with loads of great articles

recently, with the workload, I have not had chance to open many of the issues that sit in my office waiting to be digested. However, this months issue definately got my attention.

This months issue has SQLBits keynote speaker Donald Farmer (Mr BI of Microsoft). There are exciting developments in the world of SQL Server especially surrounding Project Gemini and Self Service BI

So go on, get the magazine, and if you really want the inside track on Gemini and Self Service BI

Come to SQLBits in November and ask the man himself

www.sqlmag.com

www.sqlbits.com

I will be there and I hope to see you there!

Chris

Leeds SQL Server User Group - 1st October

Testas — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:01:00 GMT

Thanks to those that attended last nights user group in Leeds, Some great questions posed around the Business implications of SSAS

and there was great interaction in the UG. Thanks to Martin as well for organising this and for QA providing the venue.

Just to let you know that I will upload the slide deck once I can connect to the folder.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ping me

for SQL Server courses please click on the following link

http://www.qa.com/training-courses/technical-training/microsoft/microsoft-sql-server/microsoft-sql-server-2008

Thanks and hope to see you soon

Chris

NDF did you say, are you sure you don’t mean MDF?

Testas — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:38:00 GMT

This is common reaction I observe by many students who have attended my course. And as many of the students are looking after third party applications, the data is typically stored within the default MDF files and no thought is given to the fact that within SQL Server, you can also create secondary data files, known as NDF files

I can sometimes forget when running User groups or writing a blog that there are still many people out there embarking on a new and exciting career surrounding Microsoft SQL Server. Understanding .MDF and NDF files is an important part of creating a SQL Server database

The MDF file is a primary data file that automatically created when you create a new database in SQL server. There is only one and it is mandatory and by default will contain the system metadata specific to the database. Left with this default setup, any user defined tables will be stored in the same MDF file which can cause contention as SQL Server will read from the same MDF file for both the system metadata and the user data.

My mentor also said, get some NDF files created when creating a new database. These are secondary data files and you are not limited to creating just one. This way you can map your user defined tables on an NDF file and keep the system metadata on the primary MDF file. This can spread the load and improve performance, especially if the MDF file or NDF file are located on separate physical disks on separate controllers.

How you place data into the separate files is controlled by tables and filegroups, and I will save that for another blog.

For more information regarding MDF files and NDF files, the following Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Courses can help

Microsoft E-Learning Course 6369

Microsoft Course 6231

If you need any more information about these course or other SQL Server courses, please feel free to ping me

Community Sponsor Sessions – why should you attend?

Testas — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:41:00 GMT

Tonight’s Manchester SQL Server User Group had the pleasure of Iain Kick, who is SQL Server systems consultant for Quest Software and Chris Burns, who is a SQL Server Consultant at Data Technology Consultants Ltd. Both provided excellent presentations.

Chris did a fantastic presentation on the “SQL Consultants Challenge” that had me in stitches in parts as he gave examples of the typical dilemmas a consultant will face.

Iain’s session on “End-to-End SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting”, may have had you thinking that it would be an hour promoting the software that Quest Software has to offer. This was not the case. Iain’s session spent the majority of the time focusing on the tools, native to SQL Server that can be used for performance tuning and finishing off by providing an overview of Quest Software Performance Analysis and how it can make it easier to perform performance tuning operations on your SQL Server.

Overall, an insightful perspective from a two highly regarded SQL Server specialist.

Many of you will be attending SQLBits this November. Many of the sponsors will perform a lunchtime lecture surrounding many areas of SQL Server, of which Iain has done in the past. Event sponsors play a very important role in supporting events such as SQLBits and some of the SQL Server User group events

Based on the presentation I have seen, I would recommend attending one of the lunchtime sessions at SQLBits. I have no doubt you will pick up golden nuggets of information that will help you in your work.

Chris