SQLCAT (Customer Advisory Team) has announced the release of DMVStats . It produces a database (calling it data warehouse is very ambitious) that contains snapshots caught through Dynamic Management Views (DMV) of SQL Server 2005. You can see database  Read more

I just found that this query has different behavior (with breaking differences in result) with different builds of Analysis Services 2005. This is the query (I used a bitmap because this query throws an error when I try to put it in text in Community  Read more

Usually I don't post something just to raise a question - but every rule has its exceptions. As you know, using surrogate keys is a best practice for a lot of reasons. Everything works fine with SSAS when you use surrogate keys with a plain star schema.  Read more

A few months ago I wrote about a SSIS setting you have to use just to get better performance when you (fast) load data into a table with a clustered key. I and Alberto met Stefano Stefani at SQL Server Conference 2007 (an Italian conference where we were  Read more

I and Alberto have posted a suggestion on Microsoft Connect to improve aggregation wizard behavior in a future version of SQL Server. The idea is to give an aggregation usage priority to dimension attributes for each cube or measure group. If you find  Read more

David Shroyer published an interesting paper about a Different Approach to Implementing Time Calculations in SSAS . It is something I would have found the time to write since Analysis Services 2000 (I have being using a similar approach since then) and  Read more

During the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2007 we distributed a free printed copy of The Many-to-Many Revolution to attendees who visited our booth. Now the same book can be ordered on Lulu.com paying only the print and shipping costs (we  Read more

The Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2007 has been a good conference. Not very good, probably as a result of its success. Microsoft wanted to send the message "we are serious in the BI market" with this event. From my perception, half of attendees  Read more

Now that our presence as exhibitor is finished (Day 3 is only for keynote and breakout sessions), we can say that we had a great success! We distributed all the 300 copies of The Many-to-Many Revolution paper we printed just to show the kind of content  Read more

The first Microsoft BI Conference started today and we received a lot of people at our booth. Thank you to all the people who came to visit us!  Read more