Microsoft Research - Turning Ideas into Reality

If you are looking for innovation and future ideas, Microsoft Research is a good place to start.  Steve Ballmer is on the Innovation Team for the US Government.  Though spending for MS research has dipped recently, they are spending 90% of their $9.6 billion on the cloud.

• Windows Azure
• SQL Azure
• Office 360

Why is the cloud so important?  Tablet computing.  A tablet doesn’t have enough disk space to house an entire product suite, and IT staff wouldn’t want to be patching and supporting tablets in addition to desktop computers.

The tablet is a rogue PC that is infiltrating corporations organically.  Like the iPhone, tablets are causing IT to take notice and focus efforts on mobile computing.

901 results for cloud on Microsoft Research.  836 results for Windows.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/search.aspx?q=cloud#p=1&ps=36&so=1&sb=d&fr=&to=&fd=&td=&rt=&f=&a=&pn=cloud&pa=&pd=

Looks like the future is a more ad-hoc, rapidly changing cloud environment.

People - Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research - Turning Ideas into Reality

SSIS: Using IF(IIF) logic in Derived Column

Of course they couldn’t use IF or IIF (SSIS team had to be different…) so here’s how to do an if statement in a derived column.

Update: So the question was if how you would use the substring statement in the body of you iif statement to check if the column was blank…if it is then set if to null otherwise set it to the substring value.
Basically, it would be like this. Please note that I have used a different form to test for a blank field. In my version I use Trim and LEN(gth) functions so that the line can be a thousand blank spaces and I will get the same result..my column name in this instance is “Test”
(LEN(TRIM(Test)) > 0 ? SUBSTRING(Test,1,5) : NULL(DT_WSTR,5))

SSIS: Using IF(IIF) logic in Derived Column

Why varchar2?

One reason why you don't name your keywords with size limitations.

varchar2 is an Oracle datatype, equivalent to its (as well as TSQL's) own varchar.

CLARIFICATION

The differentiation between Oracle's varchar and varchar2 seems to have originated back whenthe ANSI SQL standard was still being formulated. I cannot locate any definitive references as to what exactly the implementation differences, if any, were initially (pre-Oracle 7), as this remains a source of confusion. Suffices to say that the two are practically treated as synonyms since Oracle 7. Both suffered improvements (maximum size went from 2k to 4k) in release 8. Note that TSQL's varchar can store 8k

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/621439/does-ms-t-sql-include-a-data-type-called-varchar2-and-if-so-whats-the-differen

Database triggers are evil

Some concerns around triggers.  Usually there are performance and blocking issues whenever I see triggers in a database.

1) they make things happen "automagically"
2) they are rarely implemented correct
3) they slow down DML

About Oracle: Database triggers are evil

Merge Multiple CSV Files | Zorba the Geek

 

Useful tip of the day – merge multiple files….

You can merge multiple csv or text files with a simple DOS command. Copy the code below into a text editor and save the file with a .bat extension. Save the file in the same folder as the csv files.

copy *.csv importfile.csv

I've used this as part of an import routine. Step one produces a set of csv files from SQL queries on an Oracle database. Step two merges all the csv files together. Step three imports a single file into Sage MMS

Merge Multiple CSV Files | Zorba the Geek

Business Intelligence for IT

Software as a Service and Smart Apps are the future of BI

A flood of vendors have entered the SaaS BI market in recent years, including Actuate, BIRST, GoodData, Host Analytics, QlikView, Oco, Panorama, and PivotLink, while larger BI players like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and MicroStrategy are introducing products to take advantage of the move toward self-service BI. And all of them are racing to get a larger presence on smartphones and connected tablets.

Business Intelligence for IT

MS BI Labs

Microsoft BI Labs consolidates some of the tools and add-ins from Microsoft Labs related to BI.

PivotViewer Extension for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Microsoft SQL Server Data Mining for the Cloud

Fuzzy Lookup Add-in for Microsoft Excel 2010

MDX and DAX Formatter

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Log Viewer

Home

3rd-party BI Tools

Sometimes the built-in tools available from Microsoft or your corporate BI software aren’t enough.  It should not be taboo to look for 3rd-party tools that fulfill a need and provide value. 

Most companies would not entertain use of third-party tools and utilities, for the obvious reasons of cost, developer expertise and corporate policies. But it is not that tools should not be used at all, it's just that there should be correct reasons when you should consider the options of using freeware or third-party licensed tools and utilities. Below are some of the reasons in my viewpoint when usage of tools can be justified and considered.

Siddharth Mehta's Blog