I have been an independent consultant (IC) for quite a while now. In an amazing number of coincidences, or just plain fate, in a matter of 17 days I went from hearing about a job opening at Microsoft to accepting … Continue reading →
Microsoft has announced today the general availability of Power BI for Office 365! Microsoft describes it as: Power BI for Office 365 is a complete self-service Business Intelligence (BI) solution delivered through Excel and Office 365 providing you with data discovery, analysis, and … Continue reading →
On February 5, 2014 business intelligence experts took to the virtual stage for the 24 Hours of PASS: Business Analytics Edition to deliver a series of one-hour webcasts, digging deep into the world of business analytics. All session recordings and slide presentations … Continue reading →
I have had a few questions like this: “I was wondering if there is a reason the vendor/broker/head hunter forces a contractor to go on W2? As per many vendors, lots of big banks are insisting that contractors should be … Continue reading →
The SSDT January 2014 release has been updated to support both SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse Appliance Update 1 (AU1) and continues to support SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse. This release of SSDT is now PDW version-aware, and … Continue reading →
Pricing for Power BI for Office 365 has been announced (see pricing). It’s all very confusing to me but Melissa Coates does a great job explaining it (see Initial Pricing for Power BI Has Been Announced). More info: Microsoft pins a price … Continue reading →
I have previously blogged that I am presenting at the PASS Business Analytics Conference. If you are looking to learn more about business intelligence and data warehousing, there is no better conference out there. And if you are looking to meet people … Continue reading →
When I talk to people about switching from being a salaried employee to an independent consultant (see my presentation How to make a LOT more money as a consultant), the most frequent question I hear is “I worry about having to … Continue reading →
When I am tasked to do a business intelligence or data warehouse assessment, the steps I take to do that depend on the amount of time and the number of people I have. The result of the assessment will be … Continue reading →
One of the biggest new features in SQL Server 2014 is SQL Server In-Memory OLTP, known mostly by its code name of Hekaton (see SQL Server 2014: In-memory OLTP Engine, code-name: Hekaton). Basically, this puts tables in memory, giving a potentially … Continue reading →
As I mentioned in Power BI first impressions, Power BI Q&A is an instantaneous search experience that uses a natural language query. The user enters a question and it interprets it and serves up the correct interactive chart or graph. It only … Continue reading →
While there are a lot of tools out there for data modeling, there is one option that is free if you have Visual Studio. It’s called the Entity Data Model Designer. It works well if you need a quick-and-dirty way to create … Continue reading →
One point of confusion I see with Power Query is some people believe Power Query adheres to the Excel limit of a max of 1,048,576 rows that can be imported. However, there is a way around this limit. When using … Continue reading →
I am fortunate enough to have been selected to give a presentation at the PASS Business Analytics Conference in San Jose, CA on May 7-9. My presentation will be on Thursday, May 8th from 1:30-2:30pm. Below is my presentation abstract along with … Continue reading →
Microsoft keep turning out updates to Power Query. For December, some of the new features (download): Connection to three more data sources: Sybase IQ, Exchange, and Dynamics CRM Online When using the Navigator pane in the Power Query search, it … Continue reading →
As I have been giving demos on Power BI for Office 365, I have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, with many clients really loving it. There are common questions that I hear, and I thought I would list them … Continue reading →
Info from Microsoft on how the MCSA and MCSE certifications will be altered for SQL Server 2014: In reviewing the SQL Server 2014 product, the Microsoft Learning Experiences team determined that the new features focus on performance tuning and high … Continue reading →
As I mentioned in my previous post (see Power BI first impressions), Power Query is a great new tool and Microsoft has been updating it frequently. The latest update has many new features, among them: Connectivity to Windows Azure Table Storage … Continue reading →
“Power BI” is an umbrella name for a lot of products, which I explain at Power BI first impressions (also I have a video at Power BI for Office 365 video). Power BI is an Office 365 marketing offering (see pricing). Each of … Continue reading →
Since my last post about the SSDT update for August, there have been two updates, each containing one fix: The September 2013 release has a targeted fix for the Schema Compare error when working with large display text or high … Continue reading →