PerformancePoint Planning limitations

For those of you (like me) with customers still using PerformancePoint 2007 Planning, there are some limitations to be aware of.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/ppsplanning/thread/12A9AD9D-BF5F-4A28-98CD-7827AC75C061

It has nothing to do with how many dimensions there are in a model.



It has everything to do with how many dimensions are in a model site, how many models are in a model site, and how many member sets are in a dimension. It seems that if you add all dimensions, all hierarchies, and all models in a model site they cannot exceed 128 or else you get this error.

The staging database contains a table which can assist to ensure that these limits aren't exceeded.

select * from fk_relationships where scope =

SQL Execution Plan Tuning

Two ways to find what's going wrong with your queries.

Execution plans! Don’t you just love them? They’re the first thing you look at when tuning a query or a stored procedure. But what do you do if you have a gigantic query play with 10’s of nodes? how do you find the most complex one? Where do you start?


http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2010/01/21/SQL-Server-ndash-Find-the-most-expensive-operations-in-Execution.aspx


SQL Sentry
http://www.sqlsentry.com/plan-explorer/sql-server-query-view.asp

My hammer approach is to just save the query plan and then reopen in full screen.

Saving time and money with BI Business Appliances

A black box appliance might be better in some cases than one where you can shoot yourself in the foot if you configure the drives incorrectly.

All I can say is the last couple of projects I have been on related to configuring and installing SQL could have been solved by just clicking the Buy button on this.  However, if you need 128GB of RAM instead of the default 96, or a special PCI card for your SAN you're out of luck.  It's not expandable.

The pros and cons and performance of the MS HP Business Decision Appliance from one reviewer.
http://www.sqlmag.com/article/business-intelligence/BI-Appliances-vs-Standard-Servers-and-Reference-Configurations.aspx

SQL Azure - Linked server from local Sql server

Here's one way to simplify accessing Azure.  Create a linked ODBC Server.

Not sure about performance on this one, and be aware there's a chance it could pull all your data down from the cloud, emptying your wallet in the process.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlcat/archive/2011/03/08/linked-servers-to-sql-azure.aspx

Microsoft Data Warehousing Fast Track

A set of whitepapers and tools for implementing a data warehouse on top of SQL 2008 R2.

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/data-warehousing/fast-track.aspx

Fire more free SQL downloads

courtesy of Brent Ozark.  Cleartrace and SSMS Tools Pack are my daily use tools.

So you’re lazy and you’re company’s broke – what to do?  Here’s my favorite free downloads to help manage SQL Server:

Read more: http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2011/02/my-favorite-free-sql-server-downloads/#ixzz1FNZw8jt5

5 (now) Free SQL Tools

Atlantis Interactive provide next-generation free SQL tools specifically tailored for performance and ease of use when architecting or administering large Microsoft SQL Server database systems.


Includes an SSMS app with additional features, SQL compare and data compare, table space analyzer, data visualization and analysis, and schema/metadata dependency and analysis tools.


http://www.atlantis-interactive.co.uk/blog/default.aspx

Definitely worth the download(s)

Resmon - Resource Monitor for Analysis Services

Teo Lachev posts about a new resource monitor tool for Analysis Services.

Greg Galloway just published a ResMon cube sample on CodePlex that aggregates execution statistics (rolls up information about Analysis Services such as memory usage by object, perfmon counters, aggregation hits/misses, and current session stats) from Analysis Services dynamic management views (DMVs) and makes it easily available for slicing and dicing in a cube. I think this will be a very useful tool to analyze the runtime performance of an Analysis Services server or as a learning tool to understand how to work with DMVs. Kudos to Greg!


http://prologika.com/CS/blogs/blog/archive/2010/11/04/resmon-cube-sample.aspx

Feature pack for SQL 2008 R2

The Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Feature Pack is a collection of stand-alone packages which provide additional value for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2.


As with other releases, SQL 2008 R2 has a feature pack which is required for standalone installs of certain components, and adds additional functionality to the product.