It is finally available the SSAS 2008 book I wrote with Chris Webb and Alberto Ferrari : Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services . The book is also available on Amazon . You can also read a sample chapter for free. We  Read more

I and Alberto will present the SQLBI Methodology session at PASS Summit 2009 . After the very good feedback we got at the European PASS Conference 2009 , we will have the big opportunity to discuss this methodology in front of a broader audience. In the  Read more

A few days ago, I talked about Oslo and metadata issues with BI stack . I got several comments and the discussions it's interesting, but as I said it is too early now to use Oslo - but it could be a foundation for a future product. As a side note, today  Read more

We (I found the issue, Chris created the repro) detected a possible bug using DirectSlice and MeasureExpression. We just posted it here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=455732 The issue could be very dangerous  Read more

You know, today Microsoft doesn't have a solution to handle metadata of a BI Solution. Really, they don't have nothing to handle a single layer of the architecture like the Data Warehouse. In a (how much near?) future this gap could be filled by using  Read more

Even this year I will be a speaker at the European PASS Conference 2009 (April 22-24, 2009 - Neuss, Germany). Last year I had a session discussing the Many-to-Many Revolution paper. This year I'm excited to introduce the SQLBI Methodology joining Alberto  Read more

If you try to use the WITH clause in a SQL Command of an OLE DB Source in a Data Flow of Integration Services, you might receive the error 'Statement(s) could not be prepared'. Solution: put a semicolon (;) just before the WITH keyword.  Read more

It has been confirmed that the Microsoft BI Conference 2009 has been delayed to October 2010 (one year later). The immediate consequence is that the PASS Summit 2009 will be the main event where something new about Kilimanjaro could be disclosed by Microsoft.  Read more

Almost two years ago I wrote a post about the abuse of the "it's by design" answer Microsoft gives to many bugs. You know, I think that a bug in design produces the same results (if not worst) than a bug in implementation. I also had a long discussion  Read more

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