James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last eleven years. Before that he was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 40 years of IT experience. Check out his book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh.
As a follow-up to my blog Dell Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance for SQL Server 2012, Dell announced the availability of the second appliance in the Quickstart family: the Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance 2000 (QSDW2000). This is a pre-built appliance for data warehouses … Continue reading →
I will be presenting the session “Data Warehouse Architecture” to the South Florida PASS chapter on Wednesday, Nov 14th, at 5:30PM CST. Below is the abstract. It will be a remote presentation that you can join online. Details at South … Continue reading →
In SSIS there are two tasks than can be used to execute SQL statements: Execute T-SQL Statement and Execute SQL. What is the difference between the two? The Execute T-SQL Statement task tasks less memory, parse time, and CPU time … Continue reading →
I thought I would write a quick blog on a problem I see frequently: You try to copy a large file, such as the iso image of SQL Server, to a USB flash drive, and get the error message “There … Continue reading →
Being a long-time SSIS 2008 developer, I have been working with SSIS 2012 for the past few months, and I wanted to jot down a quick guide for those of you also making the jump from SSIS 2008 to SSIS … Continue reading →
SQL Server 2012 has many new Business Intelligence (BI) features and enhancements. Here are my top 12, in order of importance: Power View. A fun, visual, and powerful drag-and-drop ad-hoc reporting tool. It is a web-based end-user BI tool based … Continue reading →
PerformancePoint (PPS) is typically used against multidimensional data sources (i.e. Analysis Services), but it does have the ability, albeit limited, to work against tabular data sources such as SQL Server tables, SharePoint Lists, Excel Services, Import From Excel Workbooks, and even PowerPivot (with … Continue reading →
I have come across a number of tips while using MDS. These are tips not big enough for their own blog post, so I list them all here: To “hide” an attribute in the MDS Excel add-in, set the pixel … Continue reading →
As a 1099 consultant, I usually use a placement firm to find a contract job. I always ask the placement firm what rate they are billing the client. They usually tell me. When they don’t, it’s a sure sign that … Continue reading →
Having recently completed a model in Master Data Services (MDS), I needed to move the model from a development environment to a QA environment. Below is some helpful tips if you need to do the same, along with details on … Continue reading →
All the videos for the sessions at 24 Hours of PASS (Fall 2012) are available for free. Check the session schedule for a complete list. Enjoy!
Continue reading →There are five different way to interact with Master Data Services (MDS) to do things such as create a model, load data into MDS, manage business rules, versioning, etc. Master Data Manager Web User Interface (“UI”), also called the Master Data Manager Web … Continue reading →
In Microsoft Data Services (MDS), when running a stored procedure to process a staging table (stg.udp_name_Leaf), I received this error: “Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘Code’, table ‘MDS2012.mdm.tblStgErrorDetail’; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.” As described in … Continue reading →
UPDATE on 11/28/2012: I had this same error when trying to delete a model. Fortunately, SQL Server 2012 SP1 has fixed this bug! In Master Data Services (MDS), when trying to delete an attribute in an entity, I received the … Continue reading →
In Master Data Services (MDS), you can use the Master Data Manager Web User Interface “UI” to copy a version of a model and create a new version of it (via the Version Management screen). However, you may find the “Copy” … Continue reading →
In Master Data Services (MDS), I received a strange error when I was calling a stored procedure (stg.upd_name_Leaf) to batch a staging table, which will load data from the staging tables into the appropriate MDS tables: [Execute SQL Task] Error: … Continue reading →
Here are some of my favorite Master Data Services (MDS) resources: SQL Server Master Data Services Utilities: A set of useful add-ons for SQL Server Master Data Services, including utilities for generating an MDS model, loading the model, writing a … Continue reading →
Microsoft has posted ALL the session videos for TechEd Austrialia 2012 and they are available for free! Get your learning cap on. Check them out here.
Continue reading →SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) has a new update (version 11.1.20905, with the previous version being 11.1.20225). The SSDT team is committed to delivering regular, frequent releases of SSDT, and this is the first in a long line of updates. This … Continue reading →
In Master Data Services (MDS), when using the Master Data Manager Web User Interface (“UI”), you will notice the “Leaf member attributes” box on the “Edit Entity” screen is too small. It only fits four rows. This can be very annoying … Continue reading →