Tuesday, July 31, 2007

SQL Server 2005 Best Practices...

 

SQL Server 2005 Best Practices…

30 juillet 2007 | Integration Services, Analysis Services, Reporting Services, SQL Server

Cet article a pour but de regrouper à un même endroit l'ensemble des best practices publiés autour de SQL Server et de la suite BI

Source: SQL Server 2005 Best Practices...

Julie Lerman Blog - Mike Pizzo on LINQ to SQL vs. Entity Framework

 

Here are some highlights from Mike's reply:

  • LINQ to SQL is targeted more toward rapidly developing applications against your existing Microsoft SQL Server schema, while the Entity Framework provides object- and storage-layer access to Microsoft SQL Server and 3rd party databases through a loosely coupled, flexible mapping to existing relational schema.
  • LINQ to SQL has features targeting "Rapid Development" against a Microsoft SQL Server database.
  • The Entity Framework has features targeting "Enterprise Scenarios". 
  • The Entity Framework is more than LINQ to Entities; it includes a "storage layer" that lets you use the same conceptual application model through low-level ADO.NET Data Provider interfaces using Entity SQL, and efficiently stream results as possibly hierarchical/polymorphic DataReaders, saving the overhead of materializing objects for read-only scenarios where there is no additional business logic. 

Source: Julie Lerman Blog - Mike Pizzo on LINQ to SQL vs. Entity Framework

Excel 2007 can now do two-way sync to a SharePoint List

In Excel 2003 you were able to sync amendments both from a Excel 2003 spreadsheet to a SharePoint List and from a SharePoint List to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet. But in Excel 2007 this is no longer the case... Well it was until Microsoft released an Excel 2007 Add-in. This is a must install if you are upgrading to Office 2007 from Office 2003, otherwise your users will cry.

The Excel 2007 Add-in, can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=25836e52-1892-4e17-ac08-5df13cfc5295&DisplayLang=en

There is also an accompaning MSDN article "Publishing and Synchronizing Excel 2007 Tables to SharePoint Lists": http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb462636(office.11).aspx

Creating a SharePoint list from within Excel 2007 is known as exporting an Excel table. In Excel 2003, this was known as publishing an Excel list. Once the table data is placed on the SharePoint site, users can see the Excel 2007 data without having to opening Excel 2007. You can maintain a link between the SharePoint list and the Excel 2007 data, but without the Excel 2007 Add-in, any changes in the Excel 2007 spreadsheet are not reflected in the SharePoint list. Without the Excel 2007 Add-in, you can only synchronize changes in the SharePoint list to the Excel 2007 spreadsheet - but you cannot save the workbook in the new Office Open XML Formats. Instead, to retain the functionality, you need to save the workbook in the Excel 97-2003 file format.

Source: Excel 2007 can now do two-way sync to a SharePoint List

Monday, July 30, 2007

Collaborative Writing Tools And Technology: A Mini-Guide

Google Docs seems to have the most bang for the buck ($0) 

The key features that characterize collaborative writing tools and technologies include:

  • File types supported:which are the supported file formats for the files that can be edited collaboratively
  • Text chat: the presence of a text chat that users can utilize to communicate while editing
  • Revisions:the capability to track all changes made to the original document and go back to older versions
  • RSS: support for RSS feeds, allowing users to get real-time notifications when changes are made.
  • Email updates:the capability to receive email updating users when there are changes to the documents that are being edited.
  • Public/Private:the possibility to set up private or public collaborative editing sessions.
  • Max Editors:the max number of editors allowed
  • Real-Time - Co-editing:the possibility to collaboratively edit in real-time
  • Software/Web-based: the type of collaborative system
  • Comments:the possibility to add comments to the document
  • Spell check:the availability of a spell checking tool

Source: Collaborative Writing Tools And Technology: A Mini-Guide

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Elsasoft SqlSpec - Database Schema Documentation

Generates documentation for SQL schemas and Analysis Services...really well.

SqlSpec

Do you wish you had comprehensive, uniform, and easily navigable documentation for all your databases, regardless of platform?

Are you a developer or DBA that just inherited a huge, complex database with no supporting docs, and don't know where to start learning how it's put together?

Are you an independent contractor working with databases? Your clients would LOVE you if you could provide comprehensive documentation about the databases you build.

Are you a manager who is tired of your developers making changes to databases on live servers and not updating the corresponding spec?

SqlSpec will make sense of it all and generate easy-to-read docs for you for any database on the following platforms:

  • SQL Server 2000/2005
  • Oracle 9i and above
  • DB2 8.2* and above
  • Sybase ASE 12.0 and above
  • PostgreSQL 8.0* and above
  • MySQL 5.0 and above
  • Analysis Server 2005
  • Access 97 and above

Read more about the many features of SqlSpec here.

Source: Elsasoft SqlSpec - Database Schema Documentation

Monday, July 16, 2007

MDX to SSIS

 

I've seen two techniques described for getting the results of an MDX query into an SSIS data stream. 1 - Use the OLE DB Source Adapter and ignore the whiny warning. This seems to work when you Preview, but crashes SSIS (even SP2) when you run the job. 2 - Use a linked server and an OpenQuery command. This works but has a lot of overhead. My colleague Pablo Guzman and I came up with a pretty slick way to do it. - Create a new ADO.Net Connection and from the .Net Providers\SQLClient Data Providers list choose the OLE DB Provider for AS9.0. - Create a DataReader Source adapter connected to the new AS connection manager. - Put the MDX into the SQLCommand property--be sure to map the external and output columns. This obviously flattens the cell set, but it doesn't limit what you put on the axes--probably a good idea to have the columns end up static. The DataReader Source adapter turns all the columns into DT_NTEXT, which you then have to convert to DT_WSTR to be able to convert to anything else, but that's standard SSIS data type manipulation. Seems a lot slicker than creating a linked server. Cheers, Reed

Source: Hitachi Consulting BI Blog :