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• PowerPivot and Parent/Child hierarchies

  - by AlbertoFerrari

  Does PowerPivot handle Parent/Child hierarchies? The common answer is “no”, since it does not handle them natively. During last PowerPivot course in London, I have been asked the same question once more and had an interesting discussion about this severe limitation of the PowerPivot data modeling and visualization capabilities. On my way back in Italy, I started thinking at a possible solution and, after some work, I managed to make PowerPivot handle Parent/Child hierarchies in a very nice way, which...(read more)

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• Some date math fun

  - by drsql

  Note: This concept presented is pretty simple and I am not claiming that I am the first to do this… so if you were the one who came up with this, let me know and I will give you linkage Today I was needing to get the data for the current month for a query, and it hit me that I really didn’t have a good way to do this.  There were two common methods that people use: WHERE YEAR(MonthColumn) = YEAR(Getdate()) AND MONTH(MonthColumn) = MONTH(Getdate()) But this particular method is pretty horrible...(read more)

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• Some date math fun

  - by drsql

  Note: This concept presented is pretty simple and I am not claiming that I am the first to do this… so if you were the one who came up with this, let me know and I will give you linkage Today I was needing to get the data for the current month for a query, and it hit me that I really didn’t have a good way to do this.  There were two common methods that people use: WHERE YEAR(MonthColumn) = YEAR(Getdate()) AND MONTH(MonthColumn) = MONTH(Getdate()) But this particular method is pretty horrible...(read more)

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• Survey: How's Your Economy?

  - by andyleonard

  Another quick survey question, slightly off-topic: How's your economy? Have things picked up for you recently? Slowed down? Remained static? :{> Andy Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

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• Storage Configuration

  - by jchang

  Storage performance is not inherently complicated subject. The concepts are relatively simple. In fact, scaling storage performance is far easier compared with the difficulties encounters in scaling processor performance in NUMA systems. Storage performance is achieved by properly distributing IO over: 1) multiple independent PCI-E ports (system memory and IO bandwith is key) 2) multiple RAID controllers or host bus adapters (HBAs) 3) multiple storage IO channels (SAS or FC, complete path) most importantly,...(read more)

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• Have You Heard About Project Lucy?

  - by KKline

  Lucy, You Got Some 'Splainin to Do!' Quest Software's latest community initiative, Windows Azure-based Project Lucy, has debuted! Project Lucy is part infrastructure analytics, part social media experiment, and part performance data warehouse. The best things about Project Lucy include: It’s Free - just like our SQLServerPedia website, Project Lucy is free to anyone who wants to upload a trace file It’s 1oo% web-based - you don’t have to download or maintain anything and updates roll out seamlessly,...(read more)

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• SSIS Snack: Data Flow Source Adapters

  - by andyleonard

  Introduction Configuring a Source Adapter in a Data Flow Task couples (binds) the Data Flow to an external schema. This has implications for dynamic data loads. "Why Can't I...?" I'm often asked a question similar to the following: "I have 17 flat files with different schemas that I want to load to the same destination database - how many Data Flow Tasks do I need?" I reply "17 different schemas? That's easy, you need 17 Data Flow Tasks." In his book Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services...(read more)

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• Open the SQL Server Error Log with PowerShell

  - by BuckWoody

  Using the Server Management Objects (SMO) library, you don’t even need to have the SQL Server 2008 PowerShell Provider to read the SQL Server Error Logs – in fact, you can use regular old everyday PowerShell. Keep in mind you will need the SMO libraries – which can be installed separately or by installing the Client Tools from the SQL Server install media. You could search for errors, store a result as a variable, or act on the returned values in some other way. Replace the Machine Name with your server and Instance Name with your instance, but leave the quotes, to make this work on your system: [reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo") $machineName = "UNIVAC" $instanceName = "Production" $sqlServer = new-object ("Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server") "$machineName\$instanceName" $sqlServer.ReadErrorLog() Want to search for something specific, like the word “Error”? Replace the last line with this: $sqlServer.ReadErrorLog() | where {$_.Text -like "Error*"} Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Windows Azure End to End Examples

  - by BuckWoody

  I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring. Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use. And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use. CodePlex CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server. If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage. The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want. Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8    Tailspin Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well. The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource. The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended. Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx Azure Stock Trader Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform. That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs. I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure. The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.  Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

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• My Name is Andy and I Have an Associates of Applied Science Degree

  - by andyleonard

  Introduction This post is the forty-first part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . This post is about the education requirements for job listings. Bachelor’s Degree Required I’m not qualified for any job that requires a bachelor’s degree because I don’t have one. I regularly receive email from recruiters asking if I’m available and interested in a position they have open, or a position they’ve been asked to fill...(read more)

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• Simple Criminal Minds

  - by andyleonard

  My favorite mother-in-law hooked my bride on the television series Criminal Minds during her last visit. I started watching the show as well, and sort of followed along. I was ok with the show until a recent episode in which Fonzie used his motorcycle to jump a shark in a pool in front of Al's. Ok, wrong show. Sort of. For those unfamiliar with the show, Criminal Minds is about the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Profilers, in other words. They're called to various places around the country to profile...(read more)

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• Data Modeling Resources

  - by Dejan Sarka

  You can find many different data modeling resources. It is impossible to list all of them. I selected only the most valuable ones for me, and, of course, the ones I contributed to. Books Chris J. Date: An Introduction to Database Systems – IMO a “must” to understand the relational model correctly. Terry Halpin, Tony Morgan: Information Modeling and Relational Databases – meet the object-role modeling leaders. Chris J. Date, Nikos Lorentzos and Hugh Darwen: Time and Relational Theory, Second Edition: Temporal Databases in the Relational Model and SQL – all theory needed to manage temporal data. Louis Davidson, Jessica M. Moss: Pro SQL Server 2012 Relational Database Design and Implementation – the best SQL Server focused data modeling book I know by two of my friends. Dejan Sarka, et al.: MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-441): Designing Database Solutions by Using Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 – SQL Server 2005 data modeling training kit. Most of the text is still valid for SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 and 2014. Itzik Ben-Gan, Lubor Kollar, Dejan Sarka, Steve Kass: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Querying – Steve wrote a chapter with mathematical background, and I added a chapter with theoretical introduction to the relational model. Itzik Ben-Gan, Dejan Sarka, Roger Wolter, Greg Low, Ed Katibah, Isaac Kunen: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Programming – I added three chapters with theoretical introduction and practical solutions for the user-defined data types, dynamic schema and temporal data. Dejan Sarka, Matija Lah, Grega Jerkic: Training Kit (Exam 70-463): Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 – my first two chapters are about data warehouse design and implementation. Courses Data Modeling Essentials – I wrote a 3-day course for SolidQ. If you are interested in this course, which I could also deliver in a shorter seminar way, you can contact your closes SolidQ subsidiary, or, of course, me directly on addresses [email protected] or [email protected]. This course could also complement the existing courseware portfolio of training providers, which are welcome to contact me as well. Logical and Physical Modeling for Analytical Applications – online course I wrote for Pluralsight. Working with Temporal data in SQL Server – my latest Pluralsight course, where besides theory and implementation I introduce many original ways how to optimize temporal queries. Forthcoming presentations SQL Bits 12, July 17th – 19th, Telford, UK – I have a full-day pre-conference seminar Advanced Data Modeling Topics there.

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• SQLCruise Alaska was Amazing

  - by AllenMWhite

  You'd think that providing in-depth SQL Server training on a cruise ship would be an excuse for a vacation disguised as a business trip, but you'd be wrong. This past week I traveled with the founders of SQLCruise, Tim Ford and Brent Ozar , along with other top professionals in the SQL Server world - Jeremiah Peschka , Kendra Little , Kevin Kline and Robert Davis - and me. The week began with Brent presenting a session on Plan Cache Analysis, which I plan to start using very soon. After Brent, Kevin...(read more)

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• I Start!

  - by andyleonard

  I originally titled this post "I Quit!" but decided that doesn't set the proper tone and definitely does not match my feelings about the upcoming transitions in my life. "I Start!" is much more appropriate! Introduction I've tendered my resignation from the position of Manager, ETL Team, Data Management Group, Molina Medicaid Solutions effective Friday 14 Jan 2011. "There I Was..." In 2008 my consultant billable-days - the metric I use to determine how business is going - dropped from 20 / month...(read more)

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• The curious case(s) of the Microsoft product naming department

  - by AaronBertrand

  A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Okay, it was here on earth, a little over 5 years ago. With SQL Server 2005, Microsoft introduced a very useful feature called the DAC. DAC stands for "dedicated administrator connection"... you can read about it here , but essentially, it allows you a single connection into the server with priority resource allocation - so you can actually get in and kill a rogue process that is otherwise taking over the server. On its own this was a fine acronym choice,...(read more)

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• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services – The BISM Tabular Model #ssas #tabular #bism

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  I, Alberto and Chris spent many months (many nights, holidays and also working days of the last months) writing the book we would have liked to read when we started working with Analysis Services Tabular. A book that explains how to use Tabular, how to model data with Tabular, how Tabular internally works and how to optimize a Tabular model. All those things you need to start on a real project in order to make an happy customer. You know, we’re all consultants after all, so customer satisfaction is really important to be paid for our job! Now the book writing is finished, we’re in the final stage of editing and reviews and we look forward to get our print copy. Its title is very long: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services – The BISM Tabular Model. But the important thing is that you can already (pre)order it. This is the list of chapters: 01. BISM Architecture 02. Guided Tour on Tabular 03. Loading Data Inside Tabular 04. DAX Basics 05. Understanding Evaluation Contexts 06. Querying Tabular 07. DAX Advanced 08. Understanding Time Intelligence in DAX 09. Vertipaq Engine 10. Using Tabular Hierarchies 11. Data modeling in Tabular 12. Using Advanced Tabular Relationships 13. Tabular Presentation Layer 14. Tabular and PowerPivot for Excel 15. Tabular Security 16. Interfacing with Tabular 17. Tabular Deployment 18. Optimization and Monitoring And this is the book cover – have a good read!

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• T-SQL Tuesday #006: Tiger/Line Spatial Data

  - by Mike C

  This month’s T-SQL Tuesday post is about LOB data http://sqlblog.com/blogs/michael_coles/archive/2010/05/03/t-sql-tuesday-006-what-about-blob.aspx . For this one I decided to post a sample Tiger/Line SQL database I use all the time in live demos. For those who aren't familiar with it, Tiger/Line data is a dataset published by the U.S. Census Bureau . Tiger/Line has a lot of nice detailed geospatial data down to a very detailed level. It actually goes from the U.S. state level all the way down to...(read more)

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• Community Events and Workshops in November 2012 #ssas #tabular #powerpivot

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  I and Alberto have a busy agenda until the end of the month, but if you are based in Northern Europe there are many chance to meet one of us in the next couple of weeks! Belgium, 20 November 2012 – SQL Server Days 2012 with Marco Russo I will present two sessions in this conference, “Data Modeling for Tabular” and “Querying and Optimizing DAX” Copenhagen, 21-22 November, 2012 – SSAS Tabular Workshop with Alberto Ferrari Alberto will be the speaker for 2 days – you can still register if you want a full immersion! Copenhagen, 21 November 2012 – Free Community Event with Alberto Ferrari (hosted in Microsoft Hellerup) In the evening Alberto will present “Excel 2013 PowerPivot in Action” Munich, 27-28 November 2012 - SSAS Tabular Workshop with Alberto Ferrari The SSAS workshop will run also in Germany, this time in Munich. Also here there is still some seat still available. Munich, 27 November 2012 - Free Community Event with Alberto Ferrari (hosted in Microsoft ) In the evening Alberto will present “Excel 2013 PowerPivot in Action” Moscow, 27-28 November 2012 – TechEd Russia 2012 with Marco Russo I will speak during the keynote on November 27 and I will present two session the day after, “Developing an Analysis Services Tabular Project BI Semantic Model” and “Excel 2013 PowerPivot in Action” Stockholm, 29-30 November 2012 - SSAS Tabular Workshop with Marco Russo I will run this workshop in Stockholm – if you want to register here, hurry up! Few seats still available! Stockholm, 29 November 2012 - Free Community Event (sold-out!) with Marco Russo In the evening I will present “Excel 2013 PowerPivot in Action” If you want to attend a SSAS Tabular Workshop online, you can also register to the Online edition of December 5-6, 2012, which is still in early bird and is scheduled with a friendly time zone for America’s countries (which could be good for Europe too, in case you don’t mind attending a workshop until midnight!).

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• SQL SERVER – Various Leap Year Logics

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote one article on Leap Year and created one video about Leap Year. My point of view was to demonstrate how we can use SQL Server 2012 features to identify Leap year. How ever during the conversation I had some really good conversation. Here are updates for those who have missed reading the excellent comments on the blog. Incorrect Logic There are so many people still think Leap Year is the event which is consistently happening at every four year and the way to find it is divide the year with 4 and if the remainder is 0. That year is leap year. Well, it is not correct. Comment by David Bridge Check out this excerpt from wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year “most years that are evenly divisible by 4 are leap years…” “…Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.” If you use logic of divide by 4 and remainder is 0 to find leap year, you will may end up with inaccurate result. The correct way to identify the year is to figure out the days of February and if the count is 29, the year is for sure leap year. Valid Alternate Solutions Comment by sainswor99insworth IIF((@Year%4=0 AND @Year%100 != 0) OR @Year%400=0, 1,0) Comment by Madhivanan Madhivanan has written a blog post about an year ago where he listed multiple ways to find leap year. Comment by Jayan DECLARE @year INT SET @year = 2012 IF (((@year % 4 = 0) AND (@year % 100 != 0)) OR (@year % 400 = 0)) PRINT ’1' ELSE print ’0' Comment by David DECLARE @Year INT = 2012 SELECT ISDATE('2/29/' + CAST(@Year AS CHAR(4))) Comment by David Bridge Incidentally – Another approach would be to take one day off March 1st and see if it is 29. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 27 (sys.dm_db_file_space_usage)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_db_file_space usage DMV returns information about database file space usage.  This DMV was enhanced for the 2012 version to include 3 additional columns. Let’s query this DMV against our AdventureWorks2012 database and view the results. SELECT * FROM sys.dm_db_file_space_usage The column returned from this DMV are really self-explanatory, but I will give you a description, paraphrased from books online, below. The first three columns returned from this DMV represent the Database, File, and Filegroup for the current database context that executed the DMV query. The next column is the total_page_count which represents the total number of pages in the file. The allocated_extent_page_count represents the total number of pages in all extents that have been allocated. The unallocated_extent_page_count represents the number of pages in the unallocated extents within the file. The version_store_reserved_page_count column represents the number of pages that are allocated to the version store. The user_object_reserved_page_count represents the number of pages allocated for user objects. The internal_object_reserved_page_count represents the number of pages allocated for internal objects.  Lastly is the mixed_extent_page_count which represents the total number of pages that are part of mixed extents. This is a great DMV for retrieving usage space information from your database files. For more information about this DMV, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174412.aspx Follow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

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• Using SQL Execution Plans to discover the Swedish alphabet

  - by Rob Farley

  SQL Server is quite remarkable in a bunch of ways. In this post, I’m using the way that the Query Optimizer handles LIKE to keep it SARGable, the Execution Plans that result, Collations, and PowerShell to come up with the Swedish alphabet. SARGability is the ability to seek for items in an index according to a particular set of criteria. If you don’t have SARGability in play, you need to scan the whole index (or table if you don’t have an index). For example, I can find myself in the phonebook easily, because it’s sorted by LastName and I can find Farley in there by moving to the Fs, and so on. I can’t find everyone in my suburb easily, because the phonebook isn’t sorted that way. I can’t even find people who have six letters in their last name, because also the book is sorted by LastName, it’s not sorted by LEN(LastName). This is all stuff I’ve looked at before, including in the talk I gave at SQLBits in October 2010. If I try to find everyone who’s names start with F, I can do that using a query a bit like: SELECT LastName FROM dbo.PhoneBook WHERE LEFT(LastName,1) = 'F'; Unfortunately, the Query Optimizer doesn’t realise that all the entries that satisfy LEFT(LastName,1) = 'F' will be together, and it has to scan the whole table to find them. But if I write: SELECT LastName FROM dbo.PhoneBook WHERE LastName LIKE 'F%'; then SQL is smart enough to understand this, and performs an Index Seek instead. To see why, I look further into the plan, in particular, the properties of the Index Seek operator. The ToolTip shows me what I’m after: You’ll see that it does a Seek to find any entries that are at least F, but not yet G. There’s an extra Predicate in there (a Residual Predicate if you like), which checks that each LastName is really LIKE F% – I suppose it doesn’t consider that the Seek Predicate is quite enough – but most of the benefit is seen by its working out the Seek Predicate, filtering to just the “at least F but not yet G” section of the data. This got me curious though, particularly about where the G comes from, and whether I could leverage it to create the Swedish alphabet. I know that in the Swedish language, there are three extra letters that appear at the end of the alphabet. One of them is ä that appears in the word Västerås. It turns out that Västerås is quite hard to find in an index when you’re looking it up in a Swedish map. I talked about this briefly in my five-minute talk on Collation from SQLPASS (the one which was slightly less than serious). So by looking at the plan, I can work out what the next letter is in the alphabet of the collation used by the column. In other words, if my alphabet were Swedish, I’d be able to tell what the next letter after F is – just in case it’s not G. It turns out it is… Yes, the Swedish letter after F is G. But I worked this out by using a copy of my PhoneBook table that used the Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI collation. I couldn’t find how the Query Optimizer calculates the G, and my friend Paul White (@SQL_Kiwi) tells me that it’s frustratingly internal to the QO. He’s particularly smart, even if he is from New Zealand. To investigate further, I decided to do some PowerShell, leveraging the Get-SqlPlan function that I blogged about recently (make sure you also have the SqlServerCmdletSnapin100 snap-in added). I started by indicating that I was going to use Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI as my collation of choice, and that I’d start whichever letter cam straight after the number 9. I figure that this is a cheat’s way of guessing the first letter of the alphabet (but it doesn’t actually work in Unicode – luckily I’m using varchar not nvarchar. Actually, there are a few aspects of this code that only work using ASCII, so apologies if you were wanting to apply it to Greek, Japanese, etc). I also initialised my $alphabet variable. $collation = 'Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI'; $firstletter = '9'; $alphabet = ''; Now I created the table for my test. A single field would do, and putting a Clustered Index on it would suffice for the Seeks. Invoke-Sqlcmd -server . -data tempdb -query "create table dbo.collation_test (col varchar(10) collate $collation primary key);" Now I get into the looping. $c = $firstletter; $stillgoing = $true; while ($stillgoing) { I construct the query I want, seeking for entries which start with whatever $c has reached, and get the plan for it: $query = "select col from dbo.collation_test where col like '$($c)%';"; [xml] $pl = get-sqlplan $query "." "tempdb"; At this point, my $pl variable is a scary piece of XML, representing the execution plan. A bit of hunting through it showed me that the EndRange element contained what I was after, and that if it contained NULL, then I was done. $stillgoing = ($pl.ShowPlanXML.BatchSequence.Batch.Statements.StmtSimple.QueryPlan.RelOp.IndexScan.SeekPredicates.SeekPredicateNew.SeekKeys.EndRange -ne $null); Now I could grab the value out of it (which came with apostrophes that needed stripping), and append that to my $alphabet variable.   if ($stillgoing)   {  $c=$pl.ShowPlanXML.BatchSequence.Batch.Statements.StmtSimple.QueryPlan.RelOp.IndexScan.SeekPredicates.SeekPredicateNew.SeekKeys.EndRange.RangeExpressions.ScalarOperator.ScalarString.Replace("'","");     $alphabet += $c;   } Finally, finishing the loop, dropping the table, and showing my alphabet! } Invoke-Sqlcmd -server . -data tempdb -query "drop table dbo.collation_test;"; $alphabet; When I run all this, I see that the Swedish alphabet is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZÅÄÖ, which matches what I see at Wikipedia. Interesting to see that the letters on the end are still there, even with Case Insensitivity. Turns out they’re not just “letters with accents”, they’re letters in their own right. I’m sure you gave up reading long ago, and really aren’t that fazed about the idea of doing this using PowerShell. I chose PowerShell because I’d already come up with an easy way of grabbing the estimated plan for a query, and PowerShell does allow for easy navigation of XML. I find the most interesting aspect of this as the fact that the Query Optimizer uses the next letter of the alphabet to maintain the SARGability of LIKE. I’m hoping they do something similar for a whole bunch of operations. Oh, and the fact that you know how to find stuff in the IKEA catalogue. Footnote: If you are interested in whether this works in other languages, you might want to consider the following screenshot, which shows that in principle, it should work with Japanese. It might be a bit harder to run this in PowerShell though, as I’m not sure how it translates. In Hiragana, the Japanese alphabet starts ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ...

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• 24 hours to pass until 24 Hours of PASS

  - by Rob Farley

  There’s a bunch of stuff going on at the moment in the SQL world, so if you’ve missed this particular piece of news, let me tell you a bit about it. Twice a year, the SQL community puts on its biggest virtual event – 24 Hours of PASS. And the next one is tomorrow – March 21st, 2012. Twenty-four sessions, back-to-back, featuring a selection of some of the best presenters in the SQL world, speakers from all over the world, coming together in an online collaboration that so far has well over thirty thousand registrations across the presentations. Some people are signed up for all 24 sessions, some only one. Traditionally, LiveMeeting has been used as the platform for this event, but this year we’re going with a new platform – IBTalk. It promises big, and we’re hoping it won’t let us down. LiveMeeting has been great, and we thank Microsoft for providing it as a platform for the past few years. However, as the event has grown, we’ve found that a new idea is necessary. Last year a search was done for a new platform, and IBTalk ticked the right boxes. The feedback from the presenters and moderators so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re hoping that this is going to really enhance the user experience. One of my favourite features of the platform is the language side. It provides a pretty good translation service. Users who join a session will see a flag on the left of the screen. If they click it, they can change the language to one of 15 on offer. Picking this changes all the labels on everything. It even translates the text in the Q&A window. What this means is that someone from Brazil can ask their question in Portuguese, and the presenter will see it in English. Then if the answer is typed in English, the questioner will be able to see the answer, also in Portuguese. Or they can switch to English to see it as the answerer typed it. I know there’s always the risk of bad translations going on, but I’ve heard good things about this translation service. But there’s more – IBTalk are providing staff to type up closed captioning live during the event. So if English isn’t your first language, don’t worry! Picking your language will also let you see subtitles in your chosen language. I’m hoping that this event is the start of PASS being able to reach people from all corners of the world. Wouldn’t it be great to find that this event is successful, and that the next 24HOP (later in the year, our Summit Preview event) has just as many non-English speakers tuning in as English speakers? If you haven’t been planning which sessions you’re going to attend, you really should get over to sqlpass.org/24hours and have a look through what’s on offer. There’s some amazing material from some of the industry’s brightest, covering a wide range of topics, from classic SQL areas to the brand new SQL 2012 features. There really should be something for every SQL professional. Check the time zones though – if you’re in the US you might be on Summer time, and an hour closer to GMT than normal. Massive thanks must go to Microsoft, SQL Sentry and Idera for sponsoring this event. Without sponsors we wouldn’t be able to put any of this on. These companies are helping 24HOP continue to grow into an event for the whole world. See you tomorrow! @rob_farley | #24hop | #sqlpass

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• 24 hours to pass until 24 Hours of PASS

  - by Rob Farley

  There’s a bunch of stuff going on at the moment in the SQL world, so if you’ve missed this particular piece of news, let me tell you a bit about it. Twice a year, the SQL community puts on its biggest virtual event – 24 Hours of PASS. And the next one is tomorrow – March 21st, 2012. Twenty-four sessions, back-to-back, featuring a selection of some of the best presenters in the SQL world, speakers from all over the world, coming together in an online collaboration that so far has well over thirty thousand registrations across the presentations. Some people are signed up for all 24 sessions, some only one. Traditionally, LiveMeeting has been used as the platform for this event, but this year we’re going with a new platform – IBTalk. It promises big, and we’re hoping it won’t let us down. LiveMeeting has been great, and we thank Microsoft for providing it as a platform for the past few years. However, as the event has grown, we’ve found that a new idea is necessary. Last year a search was done for a new platform, and IBTalk ticked the right boxes. The feedback from the presenters and moderators so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re hoping that this is going to really enhance the user experience. One of my favourite features of the platform is the language side. It provides a pretty good translation service. Users who join a session will see a flag on the left of the screen. If they click it, they can change the language to one of 15 on offer. Picking this changes all the labels on everything. It even translates the text in the Q&A window. What this means is that someone from Brazil can ask their question in Portuguese, and the presenter will see it in English. Then if the answer is typed in English, the questioner will be able to see the answer, also in Portuguese. Or they can switch to English to see it as the answerer typed it. I know there’s always the risk of bad translations going on, but I’ve heard good things about this translation service. But there’s more – IBTalk are providing staff to type up closed captioning live during the event. So if English isn’t your first language, don’t worry! Picking your language will also let you see subtitles in your chosen language. I’m hoping that this event is the start of PASS being able to reach people from all corners of the world. Wouldn’t it be great to find that this event is successful, and that the next 24HOP (later in the year, our Summit Preview event) has just as many non-English speakers tuning in as English speakers? If you haven’t been planning which sessions you’re going to attend, you really should get over to sqlpass.org/24hours and have a look through what’s on offer. There’s some amazing material from some of the industry’s brightest, covering a wide range of topics, from classic SQL areas to the brand new SQL 2012 features. There really should be something for every SQL professional. Check the time zones though – if you’re in the US you might be on Summer time, and an hour closer to GMT than normal. Massive thanks must go to Microsoft, SQL Sentry and Idera for sponsoring this event. Without sponsors we wouldn’t be able to put any of this on. These companies are helping 24HOP continue to grow into an event for the whole world. See you tomorrow! @rob_farley | #24hop | #sqlpass

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• SQL SERVER – Public Training and Private Training – Differences and Similarities

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this year, I was on Road SQL Server Seminars. I did many SQL Server Performance Trainings and SQL Server Performance Consultations throughout the year but I feel the most rewarding exercise is always the one when instructor learns something from students, too. I was just talking to my wife, Nupur – she manages my logistics and administration related activities – and she pointed out that this year I have done 62% consultations and 38% trainings. I was bit surprised as I thought the numbers would be reversed. Every time I review the year, I think of training done at organizations. Well, I cannot argue with reality, I have done more consultations (some would call them projects) than training. I told my wife that I enjoy consultations more than training. She promptly asked me a question which was not directly related but made me think for long time, and in the end resulted in this blog post. Nupur asked me: what do I enjoy the most, public training or private training? I had a long conversation with her on this subject. I am not going to write long blog post which can change your life here. This is rather a small post condensing my one hour discussion into 200 words. Public Training is fun because… There are lots of different kinds of attendees There are always vivid questions Lots of questions on questions Less interest in theory and more interest in demos Good opportunity of future business Private Training is fun because… There is a focused interest One question is discussed deeply because of existing company issues More interest in “how it happened” concepts – under the hood operations Good connection with attendees This is also a good opportunity of future business Here I will stop my monologue and I want to open up this question to all of you: Question to Attendees - Which one do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Question to Trainers - What do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Good News for Women in Technology - Barbie Has Joined the IT Scene

  - by KKline

  Notice the bluetooth ear piece fashion faux pas? Yes, she's truly a geek. I'm happy to report that Barbie is now a cognizeti, a digerati, ... yes even an IT Professional! This year's new Barbie is Computer Engineer Barbie . Several months back, I encouraged all my friends and followers on Twitter to vote for the IT job for Barbie in Mattel's recent public job selection for the eponymous doll. That encouragement was founded in an experience I'd had years earlier - becoming a dad to a very beautiful...(read more)

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