Alberto Ferrari wrote about an interesting issue he discovered working on optimization of dimension process using materialized reference dimensions. I can understand SSAS behavior from a technical point of view, but it is not so obvious that an update  Read more

Reference dimensions let you create a relationship between a measure group and a dimension using an intermediate dimension to act as a bridge between them. In the Adventure Works demo, for example, they are used to link reseller sales and orders to the  Read more

This the second time in a row I will not able to attend to SQLBits - but don't lose this event if you can go to Manchester on March 28th, 2009. The conference is free, but registration is required. A training day (with a reasonable fee) is also scheduled  Read more

I just published an updated version of the corrections for the Programming Microsoft LINQ book that I wrote with Paolo Pialorsi. If you don't have the book, remember that you can download some sample chapters from the book web site .  Read more

The security model of SSAS prevents us to apply security limitations to calculated members. We can hide physical members but we have no means to hide calculated members to any role. By preventing access to the physical measures, the user will not be able  Read more

We all like Analysis Services, but when it comes to drillthrough, there are a number of issue that we like to be fixed. I added them in a feedback item on Connect – so please vote it and give to drillthrough a chance to improve in future releases! Here  Read more

I was tempted to start this post by this sentence “Analysis Services 2008 is not a new full release of SSAS” but as you can see, I resisted to it! :) Ok, it’s a joke. However, how do you interpret the answer “In the next full release of SSAS” when I asked  Read more

Bart de Smet wrote a very interesting post about the possible creation of an Updateable LINQ provider, especially if it can be used for a SQL dbms (of course it would work with LINQ to SQL but it should be applicable to LINQ to Entities too). I like this  Read more

To make a long story short: the ADO.NET team is now responsible of ADO.NET Entity Framework (including LINQ to Entities) and of LINQ to SQL (the last one was originally in charge of the a separated team, tied to the C# compiler). There is an evident overlapping  Read more

The PDC 2008 is finishing and there are some news for developers that involves BI too. The big news of this PDC is Windows Azure. Microsoft enters the hosting service market, but unlike other players, there is a new programming model “for the cloud”.  Read more