SSWUG.ORG Articles

New SelectViews Show (7/10/2009)

Registered Yet for the Virtual Conference? It's only days away. [Register Here] New SelectViews Show The show today features RAID and Defrag tips, backup optimization with filegroups, baseline stats and industry news. Also, find out about virtual learning opportunities, the SQL ti...(more)

SQL Server 911 Workshop - July 21 (7/9/2009)

SQL Server 911 Workshop - July 21 Register now to attend Chris Shaw's workshop - all you need to know about SQL Server backup, restore, recovery and options. You can download the workshop outline here at the site. Be sure to get registered right away - we'll even send out certificates...(more)

Webcast Today, SQL Server 911 Workshop Date, More (7/8/2009)

Last day for early bird discount for the July 22-24 refresher virtual conference ... ... is TODAY. [Click here to get registered] Don't Forget the Basics when Troubleshooting So many times in talking with people using SQL Server they realize that the solution to ...(more)

Webcast Tomorrow: How to Hire a DBA Part 1 of 3 (7/7/2009)

Webcast Tomorrow: How to Hire a DBA Part 1 of 3 Are you looking to hire a DBA? This 3 part series will help you in what you should look for. In Part one of this series we will talk about defining the role. Presented by: Chris Shaw > Register Now > 7/8/2009 at 12:00pm Noon Pacific ...(more)

Virtual Conference Registration - Last 2 Days of Early Bird (7/6/2009)

Virtual Conference Registration - Last 2 Days of Early Bird You don't want to spend your time running all over the country to keep skills updated. You also want to stay on top of techniques, best practices and such. On top of all this, if your budgets are like everyone else's, your tr...(more)

Webcast: Tools for SQL Server Backup Heroes (6/10/2009 @ 11:00)

Recent trends in the database industry have lead to a number of challenges for managing SQL Server. Most databases grow in size over time. Regulatory requirements mandate maintaining certain amounts of data online. Users also want to see more of their data. And the number of users for database applications grows over time as users discover where relevant data is located. To address these challenges, DBAs and other IT professionals must look to new technology to continue to perform their jobs effectively and in the same amount of time. In this session, we�ll explore the challenges of increased storage and consolidation, log shipping, clustering and other solutions to help the true heroes of SQL Server meet the test. Presented by: AppAssure (www.appassure.com)

Webcast: SQL Server Reports and OLAP cubes in SharePoint (7/1/2009 @ 12:00)

Quickly see how easy it is to use SSRS web part to display SSRS reports on SharePoint pages. Quickly see how to display an OLAP cube KPI on SharePoint page by using the included web part. Presented by: Lynn Langit

Webcast: How to Hire a DBA Part 1 of 3 (7/8/2009 @ 12:00)

Are you looking to hire a DBA? This 3 part series will help you in what you should look for. In Part one of this series we will talk about defining the role. Presented by: Chris Shaw

Webcast: How to Hire a DBA Part 2 of 3 (7/15/2009 @ 12:00)

Are you looking to hire a DBA? This 3 part series will help you in what you should look for. In Part two of this series we will talk about reviewing a resume. Presented by: Chris Shaw

Webcast: How to Hire a DBA Part 3 of 3 (7/29/2009 @ 12:00)

Are you looking to hire a DBA? This 3 part series will help you in what you should look for. In Part three of this series we will talk about the interview. We will finish up with making a decision on who to hire. Presented by: Chris Shaw

Webcast: DTS Conversion to SSIS � Conversion Best Practices (8/5/2009 @ 12:00)

Join this webcast and Learn how and why to convert DTS to SSIS. See how you can save time and money and easily migrate your DTS packages to SSIS � Introduction to SSIS and its differences vs. DTS � Advantages of SSIS over DTS � Options for converting DTS packages to native SSIS � Adding value to packages during the conversion process � Assessing the scope of a DTS conversion project Presented by: Brian Knight of Pragmatic Works (www.pragmaticworks.com)

Windows shadow copy makes Oracle Backup and Recovery easy Part 1

WebSphere MQ for z/OS security

(Tom Schneider) Previous articles on developerWorks have addressed WebSphere MQ security on the distributed platforms. This article examines WebSphere MQ security on z/OS, with particular attention to controlling administrative access, and using RACF classes effectively for MQ security. While this article will be easier to follow for readers with experience with WebSphere MQ for z/OS and RACF, it should be helpful to anyone interested in this topic.

Scalar UDFs wrapped in CHECK constraints are very slow and may fail for multirow updates

(Alexander Kuznetsov) Surely this sounds like common knowledge, yet I decided to post a simple benchmark demonstrating how slow they are - in this case almost 100 times slower than a foreign key. Recently Pure Krome asked a question on stackoverflow about implementing subtypes in the database and the discussion lead to such benchmarking.

Exploded Pie Chart for Analysis Services Data

(William Pearson) This article focuses upon a variant of the Pie chart, and extends the examination of Reporting Services charts for Analysis Services data sources that we began in an earlier article of my MSSQL Server Reporting Services series, Introducing Reporting Services Charts for Analysis Services. In that article we summarized the many different chart (or chart data region) types that are available, and looked ahead to individual articles surrounding each type, where we would specify details � and real world innovations � involving the use of each in reporting Analysis Services data. We noted that the focus of these related articles, interspersed among other topics within my MSSQL Server Reporting Services series over time, would be the design and creation of Analysis Services chart reports of various types, and the exploitation of the rich and flexible features contained in Reporting Services that enable us to make report data more meaningful, and easier to understand, from the perspective of our information consumer audiences.

Transfer Logins Task and Transfer Database Task in SSIS

(Ashish Kumar Mehta) SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a Business Intelligence tool which can be used by database developers or administrators to perform Extract, Transform & Load (ETL) operations. In my previous article entitled Execute SQL and Bulk Insert Tasks in SSIS I discussed how to use the Execute SQL and Bulk Insert tasks which are available in SQL Server 2005 Integration Services and later versions. In this article I will examine the use of the Transfer Logins Task and Transfer Database Task which are available in SQL Server 2005 and later versions.

How To Animate a TextBox in Windows Forms

(Ged Mead) In my earlier post, the HiliteTextBox, I created a simple WPF UserControl which is hosted in an ElementHost in a Windows Form. If the user tries to continue without entering text in the TextBox, a bright colored Border would appear around it and stay there until the user does enter something.

Improving the AJAX Control Toolkit with the Lightweight Test Automation Framework (LTAF)

(Stephen Walther) The AJAX Control Toolkit is an incredibly popular set of controls that enable you to easily add JavaScript functionality to an ASP.NET application. The AJAX Control Toolkit has consistently been one of the top three most popular downloads from CodePlex since the birth of CodePlex (see http://www.CodePlex.com).

OracleTurk Hints: Running Huge SQL Files from SQL*Plus and Deleting Huge Amount of Data Best Practices

(H.Tongu� Y�lmaz) Last week there were several good hints at local user group�s mailing list. I chosed to mention two of them here for public interest. Lets assume you are provided a SQL script which is ~500 MB from a vendor, with unix fifo�s you may decrease the need of the memory to run this kind of a script.

Object name from file# and block#

(Dion Cho) Above simple request has met with a big disappointment on the performance. For instance, let�s assume that I have following wait events.

DB2 9 migration: SQL performance best practices

This document contains best practices related to query performance issues for approaching migration to DB2 9 for z/OS.

Running Custom Tracepoint Macros in Visual Studio

(Paul Kimmel) Debugging is the married partner of programming. Programming is hard. Debugging is hard. Doing both well is critical to having a good relationship. The most common features I use in debugging are straight forward breakpoints and the quick watch. (Writing small, Refactored functions seems to limit the amount of time needed for debugging for me, but everyone runs into tenacious bugs some times.) For tenacious bugs the more you know the easier it will be to find the bug, if easy is actually a suitable word. To that end I introduce the Tracepoint.

On-Demand Business Intelligence Takes Off

(Brad Peters) In a challenging year, more organizations are looking to on-demand business intelligence to help chart a course through choppy waters. According to Gartner�s �Business Intelligence Ranked Top Technology Priority by CIOs for Fourth Year in a Row� report, CIOs continue to rank BI a top business priority. The new twist is that more of them are turning to on-demand solutions for business intelligence that is cost-effective, easy to use and quick to deploy. Speed is of particular importance � if you want your business to benefit from better decision-making this year, you need solution that is deployed in enough time to make a real difference.

Optional XML in relational databases, Part 2: Create, store, and manipulate optional XML data with JAXB and Java annotations

(Stephen B Morris) Explore the software required to create, store, and manipulate optional XML relational data in this article�the second in a two-part series. The software used includes fully worked code examples with Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), the Java Persistence API (JPA)/Hibernate, an in-memory database, and persistence-related annotations.

DB2 Cloud with RightScale - Part 1 - Local Storage

This screencast by Bradley Steinfeld walks you through getting started with the free DB2 Express-C on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud using RightScale server templates. Part 1 demonstrates the setup using non-persistent local storage.

Replacing BNF with RELAX NG in standards?

(Rick Jelliffe) ISO/IEC 1497:1996 - Information technology - Syntactic metalanguage - Extended BNF is the official ISO standard for describing grammars with BNF. (The standard is available free from ISO public site.)

Use SoaML to facilitate Model Driven Architecture

The Service-oriented architecture Modeling Language (SoaML), a UML profile created by the Object Management Group (OMG) seeks to help architects and analysts identify services, service requirements, and anticipated dependencies between services when modeling a service-oriented architecture. Cory Casanave, CEO Model Driven Solutions and ModelDriven.org, recently discussed SoaML in an OMG Webcast. (R)

SQL Server Index Tuning Tip: Identify Overlaps

(Brent Ozar) If you�ve got performance troubles with an application that stores data in SQL Server, and especially if it�s a home-grown application (not a store-bought app), you can get dramatic performance improvements simply by focusing on some basic indexing techniques. These tips and tricks pay off more than pouring money into hardware that might look good sitting in the datacenter, but doesn�t really make the application significantly faster.