Good BI SQL Server

Access is so 90's

GoodBISQLServer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:10:13 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GoodBISQLServer/archive/2010/02/08/access-is-so-90s.aspx

I am still yet to figure out what Access is for in 2010. I’ve been on a project for the last 4 weeks working on modifying an Access database and it has been as painful as a kick to the groin by steel cap boots.

Why is Access even still around?

1) SQL Server 2008 Express is free

2) Visual Studio 2008 Express is free

3) Both tools are better and more powerful than Access

4) Almost all solutions to Access are completely hacked together. As the data layer, business layer and GUI layer are all in the same spot.

5) Access still relies on VBA, ODBC and COM objects, why are people still being encouraged to develop in these technologies?

6) Business users who can develop in the above technologies will find .Net a breeze.

7) P.S. the most evil words in the programming world are “On Error Resume Next”.

Table Sizes

GoodBISQLServer — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:24:54 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GoodBISQLServer/archive/2010/01/18/table-sizes.aspx

Just a little piece of code I wrote to see the sizes and space used of all the user tables in one query. It is simple enough; I basically rewrote the “sp_spaceused” system stored procedure because it would only return the space used for one table at a time and it is much more convenient to see the size and record count of all the tables in a database.

I add it as a template in the template explorer:

Table Sizes.sql

Hello & Good BI

GoodBISQLServer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:24:26 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GoodBISQLServer/archive/2009/10/19/hello-amp-good-bi.aspx

Well finally I am dedicating myself (again) to starting up a blog about good practices in Business Intelligence using SQL Server 2005 & 2008. So just to prove to myself that this isn’t a fad I’ve downloaded the Microsoft Live Writer to help me publish this thing. Now all I need is to make things look a bit sexy and we’ll be off!

I hope at least some of these articles will appear in your google searches to help you out of some annoying and tricky situations in SSIS, SSAS, SSRS & the SQL Server data engine.

So off we go in the world good Microsoft BI practices.