randoM thoughtS on BI space

Top tends in BI arena

2011-06-01T10:06:00.002+10:00

I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on the trends and technologies that are part of my daily life these days. From what I see in the market, the expectation from BI has changed significantly over the past few years. Now all size of companies are looking at investing in BI. They expect to spend less, get more ROI, more data accessibility, more insight into different levels of the business, more flexibility, and quicker response to the ever-changing business requirements.

Agile BI

Traditional waterfall design and development methodologies are too slow and too inflexible for BI. Many companies are now considering Agile for their BI implementations.
But don’t misinterpret what I am calling “Agile BI”, it’s not just about the Agile software development methodology, which is nothing new. IMHO Agile development by itself is not enough for BI, I think a different approach, technologies, and mindset are required to make BI more flexible
An agile software development process doesn't necessarily lead to agile BI, though it will speed up some steps in the process. The technology and processes (e.g. change management process) has to be made more flexible to really achieve agility.
Forrester defines Agile business intelligence as: An approach that combines processes, methodologies, organizational structure, tools, and technologies that enable strategic, tactical, and operational decision-makers to be more flexible and more responsive to the fast pace of changes to business and regulatory requirements.

Collaborative/social BI

Intelligence = Information + People

Collaboration and business intelligence have never been separated, but companies are just recently beginning to realize the benefits of the connection.

By introducing collaborative technologies to their business intelligence platform, companies are better positioned to utilize and take advantage of their employee data.

Collaboration is now becoming an essential part of the business intelligence. It enables crowdsourcing and in general the wisdom of the crowds tend to produce better decisions as organizations become increasingly complex.

Self-service BI

Let the business do it by themselves!
IT is always under one step behind from ever-changing business needs. The concept of self-service BI is to provide capabilities to enable business users exploring data and build their own reports. it may also enable analysts to publish and distribute their work to others.
Used in this way, the visual discovery tools become a nice tool for super users to create web-based reports and dashboards for colleagues. These reports are not static; they are “live” and interactive so casual users can analyse data just as business analysts would without the hassle of starting from scratch.

Predictive Analytics

"Predictive Analytics" is to analyse current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.

More and more vendors are attempting to make it more accessible to information workers and others without advanced degrees in statistics.
Data mining used to be mostly used by large enterprises (e.g. Banks) but these days I see companies in different sizes are started getting benefit from that.
There is also a trend in using social network data in data mining. It can be used to determine the trend, behaviour analysis and reduce customer churn.

Project Phoenix - ANZ

2010-10-18T12:19:00.001+11:00

Project Phoenix, started by SQL Server MVP Arnie Rowland, is a program which awards software, tools and training materials to under/unemployed developers who propose a software project for a non-profit agency, school or church.

More info: http://www.rodcolledge.com/rod_colledge/project-phoenix.html

To PowerPivot, or not to PowerPivot?

2010-09-28T17:47:00.001+10:00

We’ve all seen many presentations about PowerPivot and its great features like in-memory processing which enables Excel to handle millions of records. But the question is when to use PowerPivot as opposed to using a SSAS cube?

Here are some points you need to consider when choosing the tool:

Pros:

PowerPivot is a powerful tool to gather data from different data sources. It can be used to create POCs or demos in a quick (and possibly dirty) way.
It can be used to answer some ad-hoc questions or to play with data (data analysis).

Cons:

PowerPivot doesn't support data level security. Whoever gets access to the file can see all data inside it. With SSAS you can implement security at data level.
Complicated dimension types (like parent-child) are not supported in PowerPivot
Using PowerPivot workbooks as data source for reports may cause version management issues.
PowerPivot runs in memory, when you use PowerPivot for all your enterprise data you would need a huge RAM
Saving PowerPivot files in SharePoint may cause some issues when the size is too large.
SSAS allows you to fine tune your cube but with PowerPivot you can’t.
Data can easily be out of control as soon as it is saved on workstation. There also might be huge security risks involved. Even with the SharePoint implementation users have to download data to workstation first, and then publish it to SharePoint.
PowerPivot for SharePoint requires Enterprise license and SQL Server 2008R2 EE license. The cost (which is very high) may affect the SharePoint implementations of PowerPivot. By using PowerPivot without SharePoint (Excel add-in which is free) we may end up having even bigger Excel hell!
Source data is not always in high quality. We may need to validate and do data cleansing and also more often we need to apply some business rules which can be handled better in SSAS or at ETL level.
Working with data from different data sources may require high technical knowledge. Some data isn't that easy to join. A key isn't always available that lets you join data from different sources. It will make it hard for a non-technical person to work with the tool without any IT support.

From what I've seen so far, PowerPivot is not a replacement for Analysis Services, but it certainly has a role for tactical solutions. It also can be used by power users to quickly analyse data, or perhaps to build prototypes of larger scale SSAS implementations.

So I think PowerPivot is great for certain scenarios, but for Enterprise level data warehouse implementation SSAS is the way to go.

New joy of my life...

2010-08-23T19:00:00.002+10:00

This little man has delayed this blog for 4 months! Hopefully I’ll get more time to update this blog more often.

I started using SharePoint 2010 & SQL Server 2008 R2 in my new project and will share some thoughts on them very soon.

SQL Server 2008 R2 - free ebook

2010-04-19T16:41:00.002+10:00

You can download this free ebook from Microsoft Press to learn about new features of SQL Server 2008 R2.

Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner

Enjoy it!

Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms 2010

2010-02-08T12:41:00.003+11:00

Once again, Microsoft has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms (Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00173700 - 29 January 2010)

The full report can be accessed on Gartner’s web site here:
http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/oracle/article121/article121.html

Figure: Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Microsoft BI in 2010 – and my New Year’s resolution!

2010-01-05T16:55:00.002+11:00

It’s the first week of 2010 and people have got great intensions to stick to their resolutions (I’ve been to the gym once since 1st Jan which is a good start!)

But what about the “Learning” resolutions?

I have been learning about SQL Server 2008 R2 these days and found that there are lots of new things happening in MB BI space. Whether you are a techie who loves learning new stuff, passionate about MS BI, or just want to add weight to your CV, it would be worthwhile watching out these MS technologies in 2010.

1) Master Data Services

2) PowerPivot

PowerPivot website

3) PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint Server 2010

What's New: PerformancePoint Services

4) SQL Azure and Cloud Computing

SQL Azure website

5) Excel Services, VISIO Services and other BI related components and APIs in MOSS 2010

What's New: Excel Services

And in terms of "Methodology" and delivery approach, I believe we will hear more about "Agile BI /Data Warehousing" due to the reduced IT budgets in this economy. I'll talk about it in another post.

PowerPivot & Visio Services for SharePoint 2010

2009-10-21T23:19:00.002+11:00

Gemini has got a new name: PowerPivot

Microsoft revealed that it officially branded Gemini as Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010.

“With PowerPivot, users and IT departments can: Integrate massive amounts of data on the desktop from virtually any source; Perform lightning-fast calculations and analysis on large data volumes; Share and collaborate on user generated analysis through integration with SharePoint; Monitor user generated applications,” the SQL Server team representative noted.

Couple of points to consider:

PowerPivot for Excel only works with Excel 2010.
PowerPivot for SharePoint will require SQL Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint 2010.

For more information about "Managed Self Service BI" and PowerPivot see:

http://www.powerpivot.com

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/powerpivot.aspx

Visio Services: a great visualization tool which allows real time data to be shared on a SharePoint site for those without the Visio client.

Diagrams can connect to an OBDC source such as a SharePoint list, Excel spreadsheet, or SQL Server database. However it can not be used with SSAS or PowerPivot (which is a bit disappointing for BI developers). That's a great feature and I think we may be able to build fancy looking BI dashboards using Visio in near future.

Self-Service BI?!

2009-10-20T22:44:00.010+11:00

We keep hearing about "SELF-SERVE" functionalities in new versions of BI tools specifically with Microsoft plan to delivering BI to the masses.

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduced some self-service options to allow business units and users to create and share BI solutions. Here is what MS says about them:

SQL Server Project "Gemini” Add-in for Excel

Enables Excel power users to create BI solutions by streamlining the integration of data from multiple sources enabling interactive modeling and analysis of massive amount of data and by supporting the seamless sharing of data models and reports through Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 based Operations Dashboard

This SharePoint managed service enables front-line operators and administrators to monitor access and utilization of analyses and reports as well as track patterns of hardware usage to help ensure the right security privileges are applied and user generated solutions are available, up-to-date, and managed in a consistent way.

SQL Server Reporting Services Report Builder 3.0

This updated ad-hoc reporting client accelerates report creation, collaboration and consistency by allowing users to create and share report components that can be accessed via the shared component library and by enabling the rapid assembly of comprehensive business reports using these shared components.

Rich visualization of geospatial data

New support for geospatial visualization including mapping, routing, and custom shapes can help your end users create customized reports that leverage existing content objects, such as queries, data regions, and charts and graphs. You can also enhance location-based data reports with Bing Maps in Report Builder 3.0.

I know many people are excited about them and especially about project Gemini, here are some quotes I found on the net:

Gemini enables end users to work with business data
100 million rows on a laptop with Office 2010 Excel
Slicers and spark lines in Excel 2010 are bringing BI to everyone
Excel 2010 provides BI for the masses by making it easy to build your own charts/graphs on and offline

I agree with all of them, BUT, the question is: are we missing the main goal of BI: “single version of the truth”. Is Gemini leading us to the next generation of “Spreadmarts”? Does having Excel and access to source data make a BI solution?

From my experience, if you ask business-users to do something which requires more than 1 minute of technical training, most probably they get confused, and in most cases, anything more than 5 clicks away is considered as “too technical” and won’t be adobted by business users. So how do we expect them to get this toy and build a BI solution?!

I believe the idea of "Self Service BI" is like a double edged sword, though it can be useful in the same way as we do self-service check out in supermarkets: do it yourself when you don’t have many items, so you can save time, but you will be responsible for that and if you get confused about something, that’s OK, you may ask a staff to help you out with that, but it may take more time than standing in line in the first place.

However, it’s a quick way to discover the underlying data, and can be handy in some cases such as the following scenarios:

If a business analyst needs to see what data is available in data sources
To analyse source data and create simple reports when underlying data is clean and in simple structure
To create a prototype for a reporting solution
BUT, when you are dealing with complicated logics to bring data in, or when there are too many data sources and you are not a BI specialist: forget about it!

I don’t want to be negative; I like Microsoft and their BI toolset, but is it the right way to go? Does it lead us to the “BI for masses” idea or towards “messy BI”?!

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Handling Ragged/Unbalanced hierarchies in SSAS

2009-09-23T21:09:00.021+10:00

What is it?

Balanced hierarchy: In balanced (standard) hierarchies, branches of the hierarchy all have the same level (depth), with each member's parent being at the level immediately above the member.

Example: time dimension, where the depth of each level (year, quarter, month, etc.) is consistent.

Unbalanced hierarchy: the hierarchy branches can have inconsistent depths.

Example of an unbalanced hierarchy is an organization chart. The levels within the organizational structure are unbalanced, with some branches in the hierarchy having more levels than others.

The following charts illustrate the unbalanced hierarchies:

How to handle it on SSAS?

There are 2 methods to handle ragged hierarchies on SSAS:

Using Parent/child dimension

In this method we need to create parent-child dimension. Parent-child dimension can be created on top of a parent-child table/view where each record has a reference to its parent record (e.g. ParentID column). An example of this type of tables can be found on Adventure Works sample database.

Using ragged hierarchy with "Hide Member If" property
Another approach is to design a regular dimension on top of a ragged or unbalanced table/view. Ragged hierarchy: In a ragged hierarchy, the logical parent member of at least one member is not in the level immediately above the member.

Example: geography dimension which number of levels can be different on different countries. The levels provide a meaningful context to its members, thus, while Washington DC is a child of USA, it is included at the City level with Los Angeles. Therefore there will be nulls on some levels.

Note-1: We can also repeat the parent name instead of null as a placeholder.

Note-2: In the example above, 1st and 2nd record will be required when we need to assign facts to non-leaf members. In this example we may need to assign a fact to CA which is a non-leaf member.

Once we create the normal hierarchy, we can use HideMemberIf property to hide Nulls or repeated members.

HideMemberIf Setting	Description
Never	Level members are never hidden.
OnlyChildWithNoName	A level member is hidden when it is the only child of its parent and its name is null or an empty string.
OnlyChildWithParentName	A level member is hidden when it is the only child of its parent and its name is the same as the name of its parent.
NoName	A level member is hidden when its name is empty.
ParentName	A level member is hidden when its name is identical to that of its parent.

Example of an Account hierachy:

Important notes:

For large parent-child dimensions, aggregations are created only for the key attribute and the top attribute, therefore queries returning cells at intermediate levels are calculated at query time and can be slow. If you have a large parent-child hierarchy (more than 250,000 members), you may want to consider using a hierarchy with a fixed number of levels.
Microsoft recommends using P-C whenever you need to set unary operators.
DataMember property only works in parent-child dimensions
You can’t cross-join levels on a parent-child hierarchy. It might cause some complications in report development

References and more info:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365406.aspx

http://gerardnico.com/wiki/dw/hierarchie

BI Seminar

2009-05-12T22:06:00.010+10:00

"BI for managers" seminar was successfully held by BI Solutions in Simorgh hotel, Tehran on 22 April 2009.

The aim of this seminar was to introduce Business Intelligence to Iranian managers and show how BI (and Microsoft BI in particular) can deliver critical information to support timely and informed decisions.

More than 60 people from over 20 different companies attended, including representatives from National Oil Company, National Gas Company, National Statistics Org, Iran Khodro and SAIPA which are the largest automotive companies in Iran, and other large organisatons.

The program started with an introductory presentation from me, then Dr Abdollah Zadeh from Amir Kabir University (I can call him "the father of BI in Iran") expanded the subject with his presentation about "BI, Why, How?", then Danial Moazen discussed about problems and challenges that may arise in BI projects.

The event continued with a presentation by Neo Farvashan (MVP) about MOSS and BI, after that I introduced Microsoft BI followed by a demo on MS BI capabilities (PPS Scorecards and dashboards) to provide performance management. At the end I spoke about "implementation of BI solutions" and finished it with Q&A.

I believe it was a very successful event and I would like to thank my friends at BI Solutions and Fanafzar, especially Amir Fassihi who supported me on organising this event.

New MS BI Burger - Delivering BI to everyone in the organization

2009-03-11T16:07:00.008+11:00

After Microsoft announced that Office PPS 2007 would be folded into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise 14 - which was officially death of PerfomancePoint Server - there's been slight changes on the famous "Microsoft BI Burger".

The new burger was designed to deliver Business Intelligence to the masses via SharePoint based under idea of "Delivering BI to everyone in the organization".

Farewell PPS!

2009-01-27T12:08:00.003+11:00

"There will be no future version of PerformancePoint Server."

Microsoft will consolidate PerformancePoint Server (PPS) with its scorecards, dashboards, and analytic capabilities into SharePoint as "PerformancePoint Services" with the release of SharePoint 14 in late 2009.

http://blogs.msdn.com/bi/archive/2009/01/23/microsoft-bi-strategy-update.aspx

Not a good news at all for MS BI world! I'm not surprised about "Planning" module as I believe it was NOT successful, but embedding "Monitoring & Analytics" into SharePoint, mmmmmmm?!

Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 2009

2009-01-23T11:34:00.004+11:00

Gartner is an information technology research and advisory firm which provides research analysis and advice for IT professionals, technology companies and the investment community.

The "Magic Quadrant for BI" by Gartner, presents a global view of Gartner's opinion of the main software vendors that should be considered by organizations seeking to develop business intelligence (BI) applications.

See the full article here: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/sas/vol5/article8/article8.html

Tips for gathering "Business Requirements" in a BI project.

2009-01-03T22:07:00.011+11:00

In my opinion the most important and challenging aspect of a BI project is to understand the business requirements. Majority of BI projects failures are due to lack of understanding the business. This lack is primarily due to BI being thought as an IT project, instead of being a business project with IT as one of the enablers.

It's very important to find out "what they need" and not just focus on "what they want". The most effective way of doing that is by "face to face" meetings with managers, business users and IT people. The goal of a requirements interview is to ask questions in order to discover unknown frontiers. Think of it as a one-hour immersion to better understand what business people do and why. How do they make decisions today, and how do they want to be making decisions in the future? First ask interviewees about their roles and responsibilities to get them engaged and from there, cover the following areas:

What are the key business objectives?
For each objective, ask about measures for success to learn more about key metrics and business dimensions.
What roles do data and analysis play in achieving goals? Alternatively, how would better access and analysis benefit them?
What are the current analysis challenges?

A good question to get the interview started is "How can people tell when you're doing a great job?"

Be conversational: For the DW/BI practitioner, being conversational means putting yourself into a business frame of mind. Learn the language of the business. Don't intimidate end users by asking "What do you want in a data warehouse?" End users aren't systems designers. Acronyms and IT vernacular don't belong in a business requirements interview.

Several techniques can help you establish a more conversational tone:

Learn a bit about the business beforehand by reviewing the Web site or annual report to understand company-specific vocabulary and hot-button issues.
Meet with interviewees on their own turf. Go to their offices or conference rooms, rather than IT meeting spaces.
Prior to the interview, send out an announcement describing the high-level discussion topics and confirming the interview time and place. Don't attach a detailed questionnaire to this meeting notice. You can't achieve a conversational flow if you're reviewing questionnaire results-presuming anyone bothers to complete the survey.
Interview questions prepared in advance are fallback devices, used only if uncomfortable lulls occur in conversations or to ensure key points are covered before ending sessions.
Most good conversations tend to wander, so remember your session goals and steer conversations back on track if you stray too far from core issues.
Stay at a relatively high level in the interview's early stages. Don't follow an early comment to a very low level of detail, only to run out of time and discover that you haven't discussed three other major areas of responsibility with important requirements for the DW/BI effort.

Listen, and expect to be changed: Good interviewers should be seen but not heard — well, at least not heard too much. Strong active listening skills are required.

As you're gathering requirements from the business users, intersperse some data reality into the process by interviewing key IT personnel, especially the master database administrators responsible for operational systems. Consider what the business needs are in tandem with the availability of data to support these requirements. IT meetings tend to be informal discussions, beginning with knowledgeable project team members. Once you start to hear consistent themes from users, it's time to sit down with the data gurus and get into the extreme detail of their source systems. During these data audit interviews, try to understand whether complete, reliable data is there to support what users are asking for.

There are several methods and resources for BIR, one of the best is "The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit by R. Kimball, ...".

MCTS & MCITP Certifications for SQL Server 2008 BI

2008-10-26T17:28:00.010+11:00

Last week I got the results of those beta exams (71-448, 71-452) and surprisingly, I passed both!

The surprise was because I passed them though I hadn't had a chance to work with SQL Server 2008 in a real project before, and that means there is something wrong with the exams that you can pass them based on your SQL Server 2005 experience and just reading about new features of the 2008 version.

But the good thing is that I've passed them and there is nothing to worry about till the next version! The next version of SQL Server code-named "Killimanjaro", will be released in the first half of 2010, according to Microsoft officials. The first tech preview test builds of Kilimanjaro are due in the first half of 2009. It will provide the foundation for Microsoft's first data warehouse appliance, code-named Madison, and a BI tool called Gemini that's being designed to bring a broader range of employees into the BI fold.

A feedback on 71-452 (70-452) exam: Designing a Business Intelligence Infrastructure Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008

2008-09-11T12:43:00.003+10:00

I sat on that beta exam yesterday and here are some points:

There are 75 questions and the time is 3 hours which is a bit tight
Unlike 70-446, there is no case scenario and all questions are standalone (not related to each other)
Many data mining questions. Mostly about choosing the best algorithm.
A few around upgrading and migration strategy
Many questions about new features in SQL 2008, like CDC, MERGE, …
From the name of exam, I expected to see more “Design” related questions, but there were many development questions which I think they could be moved to the TS exam (70-448)

As usual I recommend you to have a look at the topics here and work on those that you are not familiar with.

I must wait for few weeks to get the result. Fingers crossed!

An excellent quote

2008-08-29T13:16:00.006+10:00

"The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it. "
- Daniel Webster"

2008 CIO Technology Priorities

2008-08-27T13:29:00.003+10:00

According to a survey by Gartner "Business Intelligence Applications" is the highest priority for CIOs. Here is the top 10 result:

SQL Server 2008 RTM

2008-08-13T22:21:00.005+10:00

Download SQL Server 2008 Enterprise 180-day evaluation from here:

SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack (August 2008). It contains 17 new redistributable and backward compatibility components and add-on providers. Download it from here:

SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack - Aug 2008

Have you ever wondered what the last meeting before a product ships is like? Have a look at inside the SQL 2008 ship room!.

A feedback on beta exam 71-448 (70-448)

2008-07-30T14:44:00.005+10:00

I'm just coming back from MS beta exam 71-448 (TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance). There were too many questions (70!) and the time was around 3 hours which was more than enough.

It was a bit disappointing that not many questions were specifically related to SQL Server 2008 new features -not even 5 questions were specific to that!- so if you don't know much about the new features, don't worry!

SSAS: · many admin tasks · a few MDX · dimension settings · attribute properties · performance monitoring and tuning · using profiler for monitoring user roles · cube processing options · deployment options · setting permission

SSRS: · security · backup the SSRS database · setting parameters · assembly file · custom control · failover environment

SSIS: · a few questions around SSIS package configuration · transaction · a couple of Foreach loop (file)

Data Mining: · a few DMX questions

In total it was not tough if you have passed the 70-445 (SQL 2005) exam, you just need to review the topics from Microsoft website and play around the topics that you haven’t had chance to work on them.

Good luck!

SQL Server 2008 RC0

2008-06-11T15:31:00.005+10:00

Microsoft just released SQL Server 2008 RC0 (Release Candidate 0). It is expected that this will be the final release prior to SQL Server 2008 RTM in Q3/Q4 this calendar year. You can download it from here:

SQL Server 2008 RC0

New for this CTP are the AdventureWorks 2008 family of sample databases:

AdventureWorks 2008 sample database

SSIS: Passing parameters from parent to child package

2008-05-17T13:53:00.009+10:00

When using “Execute Package Task” in SSIS control flow, you can’t pass in any configuration options or variables to the child package. Here is a workaround to do that:

In the parent package, create a variable for each variable you want to set in child package. It must be defined as a global variable.

In the child package, create variables to correspond to the ones you created in the Parent package (e.g. “ChildVar” to correspond to “ParentVar”). Important: assign these variables valid default values, otherwise you will not be able to run the child package standalone.

In the child package, open the package Configurations. Add a new configuration, and select the “Parent package variable”. Enter the variable name you added to the parent package (in our example “ParentVar”). Note that variables are case sensitive. Assign this to the variable of the child package (”ChildVar”).

Now when you run the parent package, it will pass the value of the “ParentVar” to the “ChildVar”. When you run the child package directly (without a parent package), it will use the default value of the “ChildVar”.

A bug in ASP.Net 2.0 Gridview control and ...

2008-05-03T20:12:00.020+10:00

I don’t know why it has to be like this! I know BUG is a non-detachable part of software development and according to a Murphy’s law: "Each computer code has five bugs, and this number does not depend on how many bugs have been already found." (!?)

But, when a bug was found and reported to a company like Microsoft, why it should take so long to fix it? And isn't it better if Microsoft add a note or comment in MSDN like: "this is a known bug and here is the workaround..." so that people don't get confused by getting a different result from a sample code? Or maybe Bill Gates wants to make developers more creative?!

To make the long story short, last week after several frustrating hours debugging a Gridview image button which was firing an command event twice, I found it's a known bug in ASP.Net 2.0 and was reported to Microsoft on 2006, and yet to be fixed! The funny thing is it works fine when you have a LinkButton instead of ImageButton.

I finally found a workaround for this:

Put your imagebutton in an ItemTemplate and add:

commandargument="<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container,"RowIndex") %>"

The rest is same as other Gridview commands, you need to write your code in RowCommand event of the Gridview and find the index of the row like this:

Dim index As Integer = Convert.ToInt32(e.CommandArgument) Dim myRow As GridViewRow = CartGrid.Rows(index) If (e.CommandName = "YourCommandName") Then ....

Have a look at this page, (a frustrated developer was trying to get help about this issue and answer of Microsoft Online Support...):

http://www.netnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet/topic16694.aspx

"First to Know" Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 exam offer

2008-03-24T22:31:00.003+11:00

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/sqlvs/offer/default.mspx

Goodbye SDM!

2008-02-29T22:16:00.001+11:00

Today was my last day at SDM. I'm going to join the "contractors club" to experience a new type of work and want to be an independent consultant in the near future. Hence I'm starting a contract role in Tenix on a large-scale data migration project.

Working at SDM was a great experience for me and I have learned a lot and made some good friendships over the 1 year working with them.

Exam 70-551: UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Web Developer by Using the Microsoft® .NET Framework

2008-02-27T14:42:00.003+11:00

Today I passed 70-551 (a tough one!) and upgraded my MCAD to MCPD. The exam was devided in 3 sections and each section was contained of 30 Questions:

Section 1 - .NET Framework Fundamentals
Section 2 - Core Web Application Development
Section 3 - Application Development Advanced Topics

Time for each section was around 70 minutes which seems not to be enought.Once you finish one section, you can't go back to that section again. Passing score is 700.

The first section was specific to web applications and it has a bunch of question with mobile pages, web forms and new web controls like webparts, login, profiles, site map and master page as the main topics.

The second part of the exam was the hardest one, it was related to framework and types with security attributes, xml serialization attributes, class design and generics in its topics.

The third part was the architecture one and it was lot of logical questions about designing solutions, unit testing, code coverage and integration test and best practices.

Check out this links:

SQL Server 2008 - CTP 6

2008-02-22T17:02:00.005+11:00

The latest Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2008 is available.

SQL Server 2008 CTP6 is "feature complete," which means that Microsoft won't be adding or removing features between now and RTM later this year.

SQL Server 2008 February CTP 6 can be downloaded from here

Microsoft Positioned in Leaders Quadrants in Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms

2008-02-13T14:52:00.005+11:00

Congratulations Microsoft!

You can read the press release on the news here.

Overview of SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence by Tom Casey

2008-02-11T22:34:00.000+11:00

In this 9 minutes video, Tom Casey (general manager SQL Server Business Intelligence at Microsoft) gives an overview of BI in SQL Server 2008 (code name Catmai)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/bi/

What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence

2008-02-09T22:12:00.000+11:00

Integration Services in SQL Server 2008

SSIS 2008 provides the data integration features such as SSIS pipeline, SSIS persistent lookups, and SSIS data profiling that help you to integrate data more effectively.
SSIS 2008 provides data warehousing features and tools that help you to effectively manage large volumes of data. These features and tools include partitioned table parallelism, query optimization, Resource Governor, and data compression.
SQL Server 2008 provides the MERGE statement that helps you to simplify the code and enhance the system performance. You can also use the MERGE statement as a join between a target that is the recipient of the DML and a source that is the provider of the data.
SQL Server 2008 provides the CDC (Change Data Capture) feature that helps you to insert records, update, and delete activities applied to SQL Server 2008 tables. You can use CDC to store details of the changes in an easy relational format. CDC also provides a structured, reliable stream of change data that can be applied by users to dissimilar target representations of data.

Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008

SSRS 2008 includes the report server that is used to set a memory threshold for background operations and performance counters for monitoring service activity.
SSRS 2008 supports two modes of deployment for report server, the native mode and SharePoint integrated mode.
SSRS provides the report authoring features that help you to manage large reports. These features include Report Designer, data visualization, and Tablix.
SSRS provides the report delivery features that help you to generate reports. The features include rich-text, Office Word rendering, Office Excel rendering, export to Office Word and Office Excel, and report delivery through MOSS.

Analysis Services in SQL Server 2008

SSAS 2008 provides several Cube Designer enhancements for better detection and classification of attributes along with identification of member properties. These enhancements include Analysis Services personalization extensions, best practice alerts, enhanced dimension design, enhanced aggregate design, and dynamic named sets.
SSAS 2008 provides you with the capabilities to can enhance the data mining models by appending a new algorithm to Microsoft Time Series algorithm. This new algorithim is based on the ARIMA algorithm. This enhancement improves the accuracy and stability of predictions in the data mining models.
SSAS 2008 provides several performance enhancements to manage cube space. The enhancements include subspace computation, MOLAP-enabled write back capabilities, scale-out analysis, and scalable backup tool.

Source: MS Clinic 6189: What’s New in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 for Business Intelligence

PPS 2007 MCTS Exam 70-556 Now Available

2008-02-01T14:56:00.000+11:00

Prometric already listed the exam on its site.

The official preparation guide for the exam:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-556.mspx

MCITP – Business Intelligence Developer (Exam: 70-446)

2007-12-08T17:47:00.000+11:00

Today I passed 70-446 exam. There were 6 scenarios and around 10 questions for each scenario and 30 minutes for each scenario. Not too hard and many straightforward questions if you have done a few projects and are familiar with concepts like: dimensional modeling, cube designing, SCD (especially type-2), data mining. There are only 183 MCITP -BI Developer all around the world up to now compare to 3,232 MCITP (DBA) or 148,244 MCDBA (SQL 2000), that's a very small number. Not sure if that means the MS BI is not popular or it is still young or because it’s a new exam or … (?)

Number of Microsoft Certified Professionals Worldwide

I found these links very helpful:

Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD)

2007-12-07T17:09:00.000+11:00

There are different types of Slowly Changing Dimension:

Type 1 (overwrites the original information) (http://www.1keydata.com/datawarehousing/scd-type-1.html)
Type 2 (a new record is added to the table to represent the new information, keeps all historical information) (http://www.1keydata.com/datawarehousing/scd-type-2.html)
Type 3 (keeps original value, and current value in different columns of the same record) (http://www.1keydata.com/datawarehousing/scd-type-3.html)
Type 4: uses "history tables", where one table keeps the current data, and an additional table is used to keep a record of some or all changes
Type 6 (2+3+1) (hybrid approach that combines the three fundamental SCD techniques)

Note: SSIS SCD control only supports Type1 and Type2. But by identifying columns with the fixed attribute update type, you can capture the data values that are candidates for Type 3 changes.

Slowly Changing Dimension Transformation (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141715.aspx)
Configuring Outputs Using the Slowly Changing Dimension Wizard (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141662.aspx)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_changing_dimension

Slowly Changing Dimension Transformation Outputs
Output	Description	Data flow requirements
Changing Attributes Updates Output	The record in the lookup table is updated. This output is used for changing attribute rows.	An OLE DB Command transformation updates the record using an UPDATE statement.
Fixed Attribute Output	The values in rows that must not change do not match values in the lookup table. This output is used for fixed attribute rows.	No default data flow is created. If the transformation is configured to continue after it encounters changes to fixed attribute columns, you should create a data flow that captures these rows.
Historical Attributes Inserts Output	The lookup table contains at least one matching row. The row marked as “current” must now be marked as "expired". This output is used for historical attribute rows.	Derived Column transformations create columns for the expired row and the current row indicators. An OLE DB Command transformation updates the record that must now be marked as "expired". The row with the new column values is directed to the New Output, where the row is inserted and marked as "current".
Inferred Member Updates Output	Rows for inferred dimension members are inserted. This output is used for inferred member rows.	An OLE DB Command transformation updates the record using an SQL UPDATE statement.
New Output	The lookup table contains no matching rows. The row is added to the dimension table. This output is used for new rows and changes to historical attributes rows.	A Derived Column transformation sets the current row indicator, and an OLE DB destination inserts the row.
Unchanged Output	The values in the lookup table match the row values. This output is used for unchanged rows.	No default data flow is created because the Slowly Changing Dimension transformation performs no work. If you want to capture these rows, you should create a data flow for this output.

SQL Server 2005 Books Online (September 2007)

Usage-Based Optimization in Analysis Services 2005

2007-12-06T17:05:00.000+11:00

You can optimize partitions of a measure group based on the usage. Here is the full instruction:

http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/10894_3575751_1

What is "Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007"?

2007-12-02T17:43:00.000+11:00

Well, Microsoft says:

"Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 is an integrated performance management application that provides robust monitoring, analytics, and planning capabilities. Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 helps businesses to articulate goals; monitor business activity; identify and analyze issues; and collaborate and take action."

PPS is very feature rich. It has all the functionality customers can expect if they need to plan, budget, forecast, scorecard, dashboard their business activities and use management reporting and consolidation. In addition, all users work with a single data model whether they are monitoring, analyzing and planning.

We can’t talk about PPS and don’t mention two names: Adrian Downes and Nick Barclay my ex-colleagues at SDM and PPS gurus. Their books about PPS 2007 have just been published a couple of days ago:

Here are their blogs:

Here are some more useful links about PPS 2007:

Microsoft Office PPS 2007 - beta exam

2007-12-01T17:35:00.001+11:00

A few weeks ago, I sat for a Microsoft beta exam 71-556 "TS: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Application Development".

Some exam topics from our memory (myself and my colleague Lisset):

Refresh rate Interval - (PPSAddInforExcel.chm)
Assignment rule, allocation rules - PEL Syntax
Rule set types and rule types - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
PSSAddinforExcel.dll
Review all the help - (PPSAddInforExcel.chm) - is small and there are different questions about it. (e.g. parameters)
Business Roles – administrative Roles. Very clear what to do which each one. Security and roles - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Update member property - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Current Time period - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Association- (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Member set- (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Installing the PPS (Clean Installation)
Building the Reports, defining filters, show the leaf members, link the reports in worksheet (PPSAddInforExcel.chm)
Generic models, sub sites, Associations - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Workflow, setup roles, modify the existing workflow - (PPSAddInforExcel.chm, PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Creating Data Sources, DSN
Create an association to move data between models PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Assumption models - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Defining a SCOPE statement - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)
Data Integration: Sync the staging DB, Loading data from staging to application database - (PPSPlanningBusinessModelerHelp.chm)

MS BI Summit 2007 - Melbourne - Australia

2007-11-29T17:33:00.002+11:00

Microsoft BI Summit was held in Melbourne on Nov 2007 and it was so interesting for me specially meeting many of my ex-colleagues and clients. The best part was when Sean Downer (Manager - Decision Support, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne) presented the RCH BI system as the case study of a successful MS BI system. I was involved on development of that system. They are using SharePoint server to host a dashboard designed by the Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) which includes scorecards and SSRS reports talking to SSAS cubes.

Another exciting session was "PerformancePoint Server 2007: Monitoring and Analyzing", which Nick Barkley (our ex-colleague at SDM) presented the new features of PPS 2007 Monitoring module and how developers can develop the project in their local system without have to deploy it to SharePoint to see the result.

There were some other informative sessions about data mining, MDX and PPS Planning & Budgeting which all had some interesting points.

Last session was presented by David Lean (from Microsoft). He talked about new BI features and new performance improvements in SQL Server 2008.

Hello World!

2007-11-28T17:00:00.000+11:00

3....2.....1.... and now I'm a blogger!

I’m going to share some Business Intelligence stuff I learn in my job and some stuff I learn from life.

If you are a Microsoft fan, you may find some good stuff here, otherwise don't waste your time here!