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  • OWB 11gR2 – Degenerate Dimensions

    - by David Allan
    Ever wondered how to build degenerate dimensions in OWB and get the benefits of slowly changing dimensions and cube loading? Now its possible through some changes in 11gR2 to make the dimension and cube loading much more flexible. This will let you get the benefits of OWB's surrogate key handling and slowly changing dimension reference when loading the fact table and need degenerate dimensions (see Ralph Kimball's degenerate dimensions design tip). Here we will see how to use the cube operator to load slowly changing, regular and degenerate dimensions. The cube and cube operator can now work with dimensions which have no surrogate key as well as dimensions with surrogates, so you can get the benefit of the cube loading and incorporate the degenerate dimension loading. What you need to do is create a dimension in OWB that is purely used for ETL metadata; the dimension itself is never deployed (its table is, but has not data) it has no surrogate keys has a single level with a business attribute the degenerate dimension data and a dummy attribute, say description just to pass the OWB validation. When this degenerate dimension is added into a cube, you will need to configure the fact table created and set the 'Deployable' flag to FALSE for the foreign key generated to the degenerate dimension table. The degenerate dimension reference will then be in the cube operator and used when matching. Create the degenerate dimension using the regular wizard. Delete the Surrogate ID attribute, this is not needed. Define a level name for the dimension member (any name). After the wizard has completed, in the editor delete the hierarchy STANDARD that was automatically generated, there is only a single level, no need for a hierarchy and this shouldn't really be created. Deploy the implementing table DD_ORDERNUMBER_TAB, this needs to be deployed but with no data (the mapping here will do a left outer join of the source data with the empty degenerate dimension table). Now, go ahead and build your cube, use the regular TIMES dimension for example and your degenerate dimension DD_ORDERNUMBER, can add in SCD dimensions etc. Configure the fact table created and set Deployable to false, so the foreign key does not get generated. Can now use the cube in a mapping and load data into the fact table via the cube operator, this will look after surrogate lookups and slowly changing dimension references.   If you generate the SQL you will see the ON clause for matching includes the columns representing the degenerate dimension columns. Here we have seen how this use case for loading fact tables using degenerate dimensions becomes a whole lot simpler using OWB 11gR2. I'm sure there are other use cases where using this mix of dimensions with surrogate and regular identifiers is useful, Fact tables partitioned by date columns is another classic example that this will greatly help and make the cube operator much more useful. Good to hear any comments.

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  • Multidimensional Thinking–24 Hours of Pass: Celebrating Women in Technology

    - by smisner
    It’s Day 1 of #24HOP and it’s been great to participate in this event with so many women from all over the world in one long training-fest. The SQL community has been abuzz on Twitter with running commentary which is fun to watch while listening to the current speaker. If you missed the fun today because you’re busy with all that work you’ve got to do – don’t despair. All sessions are recorded and will be available soon. Keep an eye on the 24 Hours of Pass page for details. And the fun’s not over today. Rather than run 24 hours consecutively, #24HOP is now broken down into 12-hours over two days, so check out the schedule to see if there’s a session that interests you and fits your schedule. I’m pleased to announce that my business colleague Erika Bakse ( Blog | Twitter) will be presenting on Day 2 – her debut presentation for a PASS event. (And I’m also pleased to say she’s my daughter!) Multidimensional Thinking: The Presentation My contribution to this lineup of terrific speakers was Multidimensional Thinking. Here’s the abstract: “Whether you’re developing Analysis Services cubes or creating PowerPivot workbooks, you need to get into a multidimensional frame of mind to produce a model that best enables users to answer their business questions on their own. Many database professionals struggle initially with multidimensional models because the data modeling process is much different than the one they use to produce traditional, third normal form databases. In this session, I’ll introduce you to the terminology of multidimensional modeling and step through the process of translating business requirements into a viable model.” If you watched the presentation and want a copy of the slides, you can download a copy here. And you’re welcome to download the slides even if you didn’t watch the presentation, but they’ll make more sense if you did! Kimball All the Way There’s only so much I can cover in the time allotted, but I hope that I succeeded in my attempt to build a foundation that prepares you for starting out in business intelligence. One of my favorite resources that will get into much more detail about all kinds of scenarios (well beyond the basics!) is The Data Warehouse Toolkit (Second Edition) by Ralph Kimball. Anything from Kimball or the Kimball Group is worth reading. Kimball material might take reading and re-reading a few times before it makes sense. From my own experience, I found that I actually had to just build my first data warehouse using dimensional modeling on faith that I was going the right direction because it just didn’t click with me initially. I’ve had years of practice since then and I can say it does get easier with practice. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that you simply must prototype a lot and solicit user feedback, because ultimately the model needs to make sense to them. They will definitely make sure you get it right! Schema Generation One question came up after the presentation about whether we use SQL Server Management Studio or Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) to build the tables for the dimensional model. My answer? It really doesn’t matter how you create the tables. Use whatever method that you’re comfortable with. But just so happens that it IS possible to set up your design in BIDS as part of an Analysis Services project and to have BIDS generate the relational schema for you. I did a Webcast last year called Building a Data Mart with Integration Services that demonstrated how to do this. Yes, the subject was Integration Services, but as part of that presentation, I showed how to leverage Analysis Services to build the tables, and then I showed how to use Integration Services to load those tables. I blogged about this presentation in September 2010 and included downloads of the project that I used. In the blog post, I explained that I missed a step in the demonstration. Oops. Just as an FYI, there were two more Webcasts to finish the story begun with the data – Accelerating Answers with Analysis Services and Delivering Information with Reporting Services. If you want to just cut to the chase and learn how to use Analysis Services to build the tables, you can see the Using the Schema Generation Wizard topic in Books Online.

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  • correct way to prevent SPF failures

    - by Sean Kimball
    I have a website on a hosted server whose mail users are using their ISPs SMTP to send mail. I have set their SPF record to look like this: v=spf1 mx a:comcast.net ip4:216.70.103.0/24 ip4:216.70.101.0/24 ip4:76.96.53.0/24 -all the SMTP host is comcast.net, 76.96.53.0/24 is the ip range they get assigned from. ip4:216.70.103.0/24 ip4:216.70.101.0/24 are the two possible SMTP ranges they could get IF they used their hosting account mail servers [media temple] They are still getting SPF errors, any idea why?

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  • mod_rewrite not working?

    - by Sean Kimball
    I have a bunch of non-existent urls that need to be redirected to new ones, though they are not working... mod_rewrite does work and is enabled, I'm wondering if the redirect URL has to actually exist in order for a redirect ot work. Here is what I have: Redirect 301 /cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=Assets/XHTML/Advantage.html http://domain.com/the-bag-to-nature-advantage.html UPDATE this is the request that comes in [indexed in google!] http://domain.com//cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=Assets/XHTML/Advantage.html this is where it needs to go: http://domain.com/the-bag-to-nature-advantage.html

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  • How to store a public key in a machine-level RSA key container

    - by Andrew Kimball
    I'm having a problem using a machine level RSA key container when storing only the public key of a public/private key pair. The following code creates a public/private pair and extracts the public key from that pair. The pair and the public key are stored in separate key containers. The keys are then obtained from those key containers at which point they should be the same as the keys going into the containers. The code works when CspProviderFlags.UseDefaultKeyContainer is specified for CspParameters.Flags (i.e. the key read back out from the PublicKey container is the same), but when CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore is specified for CspParameters.Flags the key read back from PublicKey is different. Why is the behaviour different, and what do I need to do differently to retrieve the public key from a machine-level RSA key container? var publicPrivateRsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(new CspParameters() { KeyContainerName = "PublicPrivateKey", Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore //Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseDefaultKeyContainer } ) { PersistKeyInCsp = true, }; var publicRsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(new CspParameters() { KeyContainerName = "PublicKey", Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore //Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseDefaultKeyContainer } ) { PersistKeyInCsp = true }; //Export the key. publicRsa.ImportParameters(publicPrivateRsa.ExportParameters(false)); Console.WriteLine(publicRsa.ToXmlString(false)); Console.WriteLine(publicPrivateRsa.ToXmlString(false)); //Dispose those two CSPs. using (publicRsa) { publicRsa.Clear(); } using (publicPrivateRsa) { publicRsa.Clear(); } publicPrivateRsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(new CspParameters() { KeyContainerName = "PublicPrivateKey", Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore //Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseDefaultKeyContainer } ); publicRsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(new CspParameters() { KeyContainerName = "PublicKey", Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore //Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseDefaultKeyContainer } ); Console.WriteLine(publicRsa.ToXmlString(false)); Console.WriteLine(publicPrivateRsa.ToXmlString(false)); using (publicRsa) { publicRsa.Clear(); } using (publicPrivateRsa) { publicRsa.Clear(); }

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  • A wee bit exhausted… time to reenergize

    - by drsql
    I admit it. I am tired and I have not blogged nearly enough. This has been a crazy year, with the book I finished writing , the pre-cons I have done (teaching is NOT my primary profession so I do a lot more prep than some others probably do), lots of training on Data Warehousing topics (from Ralph Kimball, Bob Becker, and Stacia Misner, to name three of the great teachers I have had), SQL Rally, SQL PASS, SQL Saturdays and I have gotten a lot more regular with my simple-talk blog as well… Add to...(read more)

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  • Can't log in with a valid password using Authlogic and Ruby on Rails?

    - by kbighorse
    We support a bit of an unusual scheme. We don't require a password on User creation, and use password_resets to add a password to the user later, on demand. The problem is, once a password is created, the console indicates the password is valid: user.valid_password? 'test' = true but in my UserSessions controller, @user_session.save returns false using the same password. What am I not seeing? Kimball UPDATE: Providing more details, here is the output when saving the new password: Processing PasswordResetsController#update (for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-01-31 14:01:12) [PUT] Parameters: {"commit"="Update password", "action"="update", "_method"="put", "authenticity_token"="PQD4+eIREKBfHR3/fleWuQSEtZd7RIvl7khSYo5eXe0=", "id"="v3iWW5eD9P9frbEQDvxp", "controller"="password_resets", "user"={"password"="johnwayne"}} The applicable SQL is: UPDATE users SET updated_at = '2011-01-31 22:01:12', crypted_password = 'blah', perishable_token = 'blah', password_salt = 'blah', persistence_token = 'blah' WHERE id = 580 I don't see an error per se, @user_session.save just returns false, as if the password didn't match. I skip validating passwords in the User model: class User < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_authentic do |c| c.validate_password_field = false end Here's the simplified controller code: def create logger.info("SAVED SESSION? #{@user_session.save}") end which outputs: Processing UserSessionsController#create (for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-01-31 14:16:59) [POST] Parameters: {"commit"="Login", "user_session"={"remember_me"="0", "password"="johnwayne", "email"="[email protected]"}, "action"="create", "authenticity_token"="PQD4+eIREKBfHR3/fleWuQSEtZd7RIvl7khSYo5eXe0=", "controller"="user_sessions"} User Columns (2.2ms) SHOW FIELDS FROM users User Load (3.7ms) SELECT * FROM users WHERE (users.email = '[email protected]') ORDER BY email ASC LIMIT 1 SAVED SESSION? false CACHE (0.0ms) SELECT * FROM users WHERE (users.email = '[email protected]') ORDER BY email ASC LIMIT 1 Redirected to http://localhost:3000/login Lastly, the console indicates that the new password is valid: $ u.valid_password? 'johnwayne' = true Would love to do it all in the console, is there a way to load UserSession controller and call methods directly? Kimball

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  • Transforming OLTP Relational Database to Data Warehousing Model

    - by Russ Cam
    What are the common design approaches taken in loading data from a typical Entity-Relationship OLTP database model into a Kimball star schema Data Warehouse/Marts model? Do you use a staging area to perform the transformation and then load into the warehouse? How do you link data between the warehouse and the OLTP database? Where/How do you manage the transformation process - in the database as sprocs, dts/ssis packages, or SQL from application code?

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  • SQL Rally Pre-Con: Data Warehouse Modeling – Making the Right Choices

    - by Davide Mauri
    As you may have already learned from my old post or Adam’s or Kalen’s posts, there will be two SQL Rally in North Europe. In the Stockholm SQL Rally, with my friend Thomas Kejser, I’ll be delivering a pre-con on Data Warehouse Modeling: Data warehouses play a central role in any BI solution. It's the back end upon which everything in years to come will be created. For this reason, it must be rock solid and yet flexible at the same time. To develop such a data warehouse, you must have a clear idea of its architecture, a thorough understanding of the concepts of Measures and Dimensions, and a proven engineered way to build it so that quality and stability can go hand-in-hand with cost reduction and scalability. In this workshop, Thomas Kejser and Davide Mauri will share all the information they learned since they started working with data warehouses, giving you the guidance and tips you need to start your BI project in the best way possible?avoiding errors, making implementation effective and efficient, paving the way for a winning Agile approach, and helping you define how your team should work so that your BI solution will stand the test of time. You'll learn: Data warehouse architecture and justification Agile methodology Dimensional modeling, including Kimball vs. Inmon, SCD1/SCD2/SCD3, Junk and Degenerate Dimensions, and Huge Dimensions Best practices, naming conventions, and lessons learned Loading the data warehouse, including loading Dimensions, loading Facts (Full Load, Incremental Load, Partitioned Load) Data warehouses and Big Data (Hadoop) Unit testing Tracking historical changes and managing large sizes With all the Self-Service BI hype, Data Warehouse is become more and more central every day, since if everyone will be able to analyze data using self-service tools, it’s better for him/her to rely on correct, uniform and coherent data. Already 50 people registered from the workshop and seats are limited so don’t miss this unique opportunity to attend to this workshop that is really a unique combination of years and years of experience! http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2013/nordic/Agenda/PreconferenceSeminars.aspx See you there!

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  • Metadata requirements for developers

    - by Paul James
    I'm tasked with providing a list of metadata requirements our data warehouse developers might need. This is not the business metadata (nice descriptions etc), but rather data required for change management (also known as impact assesment), data lineage etc. I've seen this article Meta Meta Data Data - Ralph Kimball but as I'm not the first person to do this I'm throwing it to the SO community. The actual question is this: What metadata do datawarehouse developers require to design, develop and manage change in ETL routines? PS: I'm trying to keep the answer platform agnostic but for context this is an Oracle database with PL/SQL and Datastage.

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  • how can I open eclipse and see the project view I last looked at?

    - by Stato Machino
    I'm completely mystified. I do not understand why Eclipse does not show me my list of projects! And all the answers I've seen to similar questions do not mention any 'go here and do that' type of answers. I tried 'Import/General/Existing Projects into Workspace/browse-to...' but that told me the project was already in the workspace. But I KNEW THAT! The project menu does not have an 'open project' option!!!! There is no 'open workspace' option. How do people open Eclipse and 'resume working'??? What is the single, dependable, repeatable option for opening the 'project tree' to show my project? [or tell me my expectations that Java people are smarter are way off base!] Thanks, Kimball

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  • BIWA Wednesday TechCast Series - Opposition to Data Warehouse Initiatives

    - by jenny.gelhausen
    BIWA Wednesday TechCast Series - 19th Event! Opposition to Data Warehouse Initiatives Please join us for this webcast on Wednesday, March 24, 12 noon Eastern or check your local area's time Webcast is open to clients, prospects and partners. No matter how good your technology and technical skills, organizational issues can derail a data warehousing or BI project. Therefore BIWA presents a vital topic that crosses product boundaries: organizational resistance to data warehouse initiatives - how to recognize it and what to do about it. Many a DW/BI professional has been surprised by organizational resistance to DW/BI initiatives. Yet real organizational imperatives may be behind this apparently irrational behavior. Based on in-depth interviews with IT professionals, industry consultants, and power users, our speaker Bruce Jenks will present his research findings about what drives organizational resistance to data warehouse initiatives. The talk will cover specific behaviors that can signal organizational resistance to a data warehouse program and what organizations have done to address such resistance. Presenter: Bruce Jenks of Dun and Bradstreet Bruce Jenks has over 20 years experience in data warehousing and business intelligence, much of it as a consultant to large organizations spanning the US. Bruce's data warehousing clients have included firms such as Sprint, Gallo Wines, Southern California Edison, The Gap, and Safeway. He started his data warehousing career at Metaphor Computers, a pioneering DW/BI firm from which a number of industry luminaries sprang including Ralph Kimball (author of The Data Warehouse Toolkit ). Bruce continued his data warehousing career at HP, Stanford University and other firms. Bruce is currently completing his doctorate in business administration at Golden Gate University, and today's material arises from his doctoral research. He is also a principal consultant for Dun and Bradstreet. Audio Dial-In: 866 682 4770 Audio Meeting ID: 1683901 Audio Meeting Passcode: 334451 Web Conference: Please register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/807185273 After you register you will be provided with a link to the TechCast. Invitation to Speakers: All BIWA members and Oracle professionals (experts, end users, managers, DBAs, developers, data analysts, ISVs, partners, etc.) may submit abstracts for 45 minute technical webcasts to our Oracle BIWA (IOUG SIG) Community. Submit your BIWA TechCast abstract today! BIWA is a worldwide forum with over 2000 members who are business intelligence, warehousing and analytics professionals. BIWA presents information, experiences and best practices in successfully deploying Oracle Database-centric BI, Data Warehousing, and Analytics products, features and Options--the Oracle Database "BIWA" platform. Attendance Information & Replays at the BIWA website: oraclebiwa.org var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-13185312-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

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  • Poll Results: Foreign Key Constraints

    - by Darren Gosbell
    A few weeks ago I did the following post asking people – if they used foreign key constraints in their star schemas. The poll is still open if you are interested in adding to it, but here is what the chart looks like as of today. (at the bottom of the poll itself there is a link to the live results, unfortunately I cannot link the live results in here as the blogging platform blocks the required javascript)   Interestingly the results are fairly even. Of the 78 respondents, fractionally over half at least aim to start with referential integrity in their star schemas. I did not want to influence the results by sharing my opinion, but my personal preference is to always aim to have foreign key constraints. But at the same time, I am pragmatic about it, I do have projects where for various reasons some constraints are not defined. And I also have other designs that I have inherited, where it would just be too much work to go back and add foreign key constraints. If you are going to implement foreign keys in your star schema, they really need to be there at the start. In fact this poll was was the result of a feature request for BIDSHelper asking for a feature to check for null/missing foreign keys and I am entirely convinced that BIDS is the wrong place for this sort of functionality. BIDS is a design tool, your data needs to be constantly checked for consistency. It's not that I think that it's impossible to get a design working without foreign key constraints, but I like the idea of failing as soon as possible if there is an error and enforcing foreign key constraints lets me "fail early" if there are constancy issues with my data. By far the biggest concern with foreign keys is performance and I suppose I'm curious as to how often people actually measure and quantify this. I worked on a project a number of years ago that had very large data volumes and we did find that foreign key constraints did have a measurable impact, but what we did was to disable the constraints before loading the data, then enabled and checked them afterwards. This saved as time (although not as much as not having constraints at all), but still let us know early in the process if there were any consistency issues. For the people that do not have consistent data, if you have ETL processes that you control that are building your star schema which you also control, then to be blunt you only have yourself to blame. It is the job of the ETL process to make the data consistent. There are techniques for handling situations like missing data as well as  early and late arriving data. Ralph Kimball's book – The Data Warehouse Toolkit goes through some design patterns for handling data consistency. Having foreign key relationships can also help the relational engine to optimize queries as noted in this recent blog post by Boyan Penev

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  • How can see what processes makes my server slow?

    - by Steven
    All my websites on my server are extremely slow or not loading at all. Even server admin (Plesk) will not load some times. There's been no changes to the sites for the last coupple of months. How can I see what processes is making my server slow? My environment looks like this: Server: VPS running Linux 2.8.x OS: Centos 5 Manage interface: Plesk 9.x Memmory: 1024MB CPU: 2.2GHz My websites run on PHP and MySQL. I finally managed to telnet (Putty + SSH) in to my server. Running top did not show any processes using more than max 2% CPU and none were using exesive memmory. I also got a friend to install a program that checks the core files, and all seemed fine. So I'm leaning towards network issues or some other server malfunction. But I'm not able to find out what can be wrong. Here are some answers to Sean Kimball: I don't run mail services on my server yet There are noe specific bandwidth peaks. Prefork looks like this <IfModule prefork.c> StartServers 8 MinSpareServers 5 MaxSpareServers 20 ServerLimit 256 MaxClients 256 MaxRequestsPerChild 4000 </IfModule> Not sure what you mean with DNS question. But I think it's up and running. There are no processes running wild Where can I find avarage load? Telnet is disabled and I have to log in using SSH :)

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  • Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video Review by Diethard Steiner, Packt Publishing

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2014/06/01/building-a-data-mart-with-pentaho-data-integration-video-review.aspx The Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video by Diethard Steiner from Packt Publishing is more than just a course on how to use Pentaho Data Integration, it also implements and uses the principals of the Data Warehousing (and I even heard the name of Ralph Kimball in the video). Indeed, a video watcher should be familiar with its concepts as the Star Schema, Slowly Changing Dimension types, etc. so I suggest prior to watching this course to consider skimming through the Data Warehouse concepts (if unfamiliar) or even better, read the excellent Ralph’s The Data Warehouse Tooolkit. By the way, the author expands beyond using Pentaho along to MySQL and MonetDB which is a real icing on the cake! Indeed, I even suggest the name of the course should be ‘Building a Data Warehouse with Pentaho’. To successfully complete the course one needs to know some Linux (Ubuntu used in the course), the VI editor and the Bash command shell, but it seems that similar requirements would also apply to the Weindows OS. Additionally, knowing some basic SQL would not hurt. As I had said, MonetDB is used in this course several times which seems to be not anymore complex than say MySQL, but based on what I read is very well suited for fast querying big volumes of data thanks to having a columnstore (vertical data storage). I don’t see what else can be a barrier, the material is very digestible. On this note, I must add that the author does not cover how to acquire the software, so here is what I found may help: Pentaho: the free Community Edition must be more than anyone needs to learn it. Or even go into a POC. MonetDB can be downloaded (exists for both, Linux and Windows) from http://goo.gl/FYxMy0 (just see the appropriate link on the left). The author seems to be using Eclipse to run SQL code, one can get it from http://goo.gl/5CcuN. To create, or edit database entities and/or schema otherwise one can use a universal tool called SQuirreL, get it from http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net.   Next, I must confess Diethard is very knowledgeable in what he does and beyond. However, there will be some accent heard to the user of the course especially if one’s mother tongue language is English, but it I got over it in a few chapters. I liked the rate at which the material is being presented, it makes me feel I paid for every second Eventually, my impressions are: Pentaho is an awesome ETL offering, it is worth learning it very much (I am an ETL fan and a heavy user of SSIS) MonetDB is nice, it tickles my fancy to know it more Data Warehousing, despite all the BigData tool offerings (Hive, Scoop, Pig on Hadoop), using the traditional tools still rocks Chapters 2 to 6 were the most fun to me with chapter 8 being the most difficult.   In terms of closing, I highly recommend this video to anyone who needs to grasp Pentaho concepts quick, likewise, the course is very well suited for any developer on a “supposed to be done yesterday” type of a project. It is for a beginner to intermediate level ETL/DW developer. But one would need to learn more on Data Warehousing and Pentaho, for such I recommend the 5 star Pentaho Data Integration 4 Cookbook. Enjoy it! Disclaimer: I received this video from the publisher for the purpose of a public review.

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  • Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video Review by Diethard Steiner, Packt Publishing

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2014/06/01/building-a-data-mart-with-pentaho-data-integration-video-review-again.aspx The Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video by Diethard Steiner from Packt Publishing is more than just a course on how to use Pentaho Data Integration, it also implements and uses the principals of the Data Warehousing (and I even heard the name of Ralph Kimball in the video). Indeed, a video watcher should be familiar with its concepts as the Star Schema, Slowly Changing Dimension types, etc. so I suggest prior to watching this course to consider skimming through the Data Warehouse concepts (if unfamiliar) or even better, read the excellent Ralph’s The Data Warehouse Tooolkit. By the way, the author expands beyond using Pentaho along to MySQL and MonetDB which is a real icing on the cake! Indeed, I even suggest the name of the course should be ‘Building a Data Warehouse with Pentaho’. To successfully complete the course one needs to know some Linux (Ubuntu used in the course), the VI editor and the Bash command shell, but it seems that similar requirements would also apply to the Windows OS. Additionally, knowing some basic SQL would not hurt. As I had said, MonetDB is used in this course several times which seems to be not anymore complex than say MySQL, but based on what I read is very well suited for fast querying big volumes of data thanks to having a columnstore (vertical data storage). I don’t see what else can be a barrier, the material is very digestible. On this note, I must add that the author does not cover how to acquire the software, so here is what I found may help: Pentaho: the free Community Edition must be more than anyone needs to learn it. Or even go into a POC. MonetDB can be downloaded (exists for both, Linux and Windows) from http://goo.gl/FYxMy0 (just see the appropriate link on the left). The author seems to be using Eclipse to run SQL code, one can get it from http://goo.gl/5CcuN. To create, or edit database entities and/or schema otherwise one can use a universal tool called SQuirreL, get it from http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net.   Next, I must confess Diethard is very knowledgeable in what he does and beyond. However, there will be some accent heard to the user of the course especially if one’s mother tongue language is English, but it I got over it in a few chapters. I liked the rate at which the material is being presented, it makes me feel I paid for every second Eventually, my impressions are: Pentaho is an awesome ETL offering, it is worth learning it very much (I am an ETL fan and a heavy user of SSIS) MonetDB is nice, it tickles my fancy to know it more Data Warehousing, despite all the BigData tool offerings (Hive, Scoop, Pig on Hadoop), using the traditional tools still rocks Chapters 2 to 6 were the most fun to me with chapter 8 being the most difficult.   In terms of closing, I highly recommend this video to anyone who needs to grasp Pentaho concepts quick, likewise, the course is very well suited for any developer on a “supposed to be done yesterday” type of a project. It is for a beginner to intermediate level ETL/DW developer. But one would need to learn more on Data Warehousing and Pentaho, for such I recommend the 5 star Pentaho Data Integration 4 Cookbook. Enjoy it! Disclaimer: I received this video from the publisher for the purpose of a public review.

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  • What corresponds to the Unity 'registration name' in the unity configuration section?

    - by unanswered
    When registering and resolving types in a Unity Container using code you can use 'Registration Names' to disambiguate your references that derive from an interface or base class hierarchy. The 'registration name' text would be provided as a parameter to the register and resolve methods: myContainer.RegisterType<IMyService, CustomerService>("Customers"); and MyServiceBase result = myContainer.Resolve<MyServiceBase>("Customers"); However when I register types in the configuration files I do not see where the 'registration name' can be assigned I register an Interface: <typeAlias alias="IEnlistmentNotification" type="System.Transactions.IEnlistmentNotification, System.Transactions, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" /> Then two types that I happen to know implement that interface: <typeAlias alias="PlaylistManager" type="Sample.Dailies.Grid.Workers.PlaylistManager, Sample.Dailies.Grid.Workers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null" /> <typeAlias alias="FlexAleManager" type="Sample.Dailies.Grid.Workers.FlexAleManager, Sample.Dailies.Grid.Workers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null" /> Then I provide mappings between the interface and the two types: <type type="IEnlistmentNotification" mapTo="FlexAleManager"><lifetime type="singleton"/></type> <type type="IEnlistmentNotification" mapTo="PlaylistManager"><lifetime type="singleton"/></type> That seems to correspond to this code: myContainer.RegisterType<IEnlistmentNotification, FlexAleManager>(); myContainer.RegisterType<IEnlistmentNotification, PlaylistManager>(); but clearly what I need is a disambiguating config entry that corresponds to this code: myContainer.RegisterType<IEnlistmentNotification, FlexAleManager>("Flex"); myContainer.RegisterType<IEnlistmentNotification, PlaylistManager>("Play"); Then when I get into my code I could do this: IEnlistmentNotification flex = myContainer.Resolve<IEnlistmentNotification>("Flex"); IEnlistmentNotification play = myContainer.Resolve<IEnlistmentNotification>("Play"); See what I mean? Thanks, Kimball

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  • What Counts For a DBA: Fitness

    - by Louis Davidson
    If you know me, you can probably guess that physical exercise is not really my thing. There was a time in my past when it a larger part of my life, but even then never in the same sort of passionate way as a number of our SQL friends.  For me, I find that mental exercise satisfies what I believe to be the same inner need that drives people to run farther than I like to drive on most Saturday mornings, and it is certainly just as addictive. Mental fitness shares many common traits with physical fitness, especially the need to attain it through repetitive training. I only wish that mental training burned off a bacon cheeseburger in the same manner as does jogging around a dewy park on Saturday morning. In physical training, there are at least two goals, the first of which is to be physically able to do a task. The second is to train the brain to perform the task without thinking too hard about it. No matter how long it has been since you last rode a bike, you will be almost certainly be able to hop on and start riding without thinking about the process of pedaling or balancing. If you’ve never ridden a bike, you could be a physics professor /Olympic athlete and still crash the first few times you try, even though you are as strong as an ox and your knowledge of the physics of bicycle riding makes the concept child’s play. For programming tasks, the process is very similar. As a DBA, you will come to know intuitively how to backup, optimize, and secure database systems. As a data programmer, you will work to instinctively use the clauses of Transact-SQL DML so that, when you need to group data three ways (and not four), you will know to use the GROUP BY clause with GROUPING SETS without resorting to a search engine.  You have the skill. Making it naturally then requires repetition and experience is the primary requirement, not just simply learning about a topic. The hardest part of being really good at something is this difference between knowledge and skill. I have recently taken several informative training classes with Kimball University on data warehousing and ETL. Now I have a lot more knowledge about designing data warehouses than before. I have also done a good bit of data warehouse designing of late and have started to improve to some level of proficiency with the theory. Yet, for all of this head knowledge, it is still a struggle to take what I have learned and apply it to the designs I am working on.  Data warehousing is still a task that is not yet deeply ingrained in my brain muscle memory. On the other hand, relational database design is something that no matter how much or how little I may get to do it, I am comfortable doing it. I have done it as a profession now for well over a decade, I teach classes on it, and I also have done (and continue to do) a lot of mental training beyond the work day. Sometimes the training is just basic education, some reading blogs and attending sessions at PASS events.  My best training comes from spending time working on other people’s design issues in forums (though not nearly as much as I would like to lately). Working through other people’s problems is a great way to exercise your brain on problems with which you’re not immediately familiar. The final bit of exercise I find useful for cultivating mental fitness for a data professional is also probably the nerdiest thing that I will ever suggest you do.  Akin to running in place, the idea is to work through designs in your head. I have designed more than one database system that would revolutionize grocery store operations, sales at my local Target store, the ordering process at Amazon, and ways to improve Disney World operations to get me through a line faster (some of which they are starting to implement without any of my help.) Never are the designs truly fleshed out, but enough to work through structures and processes.  On “paper”, I have designed database systems to catalog things as trivial as my Lego creations, rental car companies and my audio and video collections. Once I get the database designed mentally, sometimes I will create the database, add some data (often using Red-Gate’s Data Generator), and write a few queries to see if a concept was realistic, but I will rarely fully flesh out the database since I have no desire to do any user interface programming anymore.  The mental training allows me to keep in practice for when the time comes to do the work I love the most for real…even if I have been spending most of my work time lately building data warehouses.  If you are really strong of mind and body, perhaps you can mix a mental run with a physical run; though don’t run off of a cliff while contemplating how you might design a database to catalog the trees on a mountain…that would be contradictory to the purpose of both types of exercise.

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  • SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #039

    - by Pinal Dave
    Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 FQL – Facebook Query Language Facebook list following advantages of FQL: Condensed XML reduces bandwidth and parsing costs. More complex requests can reduce the number of requests necessary. Provides a single consistent, unified interface for all of your data. It’s fun! UDF – Get the Day of the Week Function The day of the week can be retrieved in SQL Server by using the DatePart function. The value returned by the function is between 1 (Sunday) and 7 (Saturday). To convert this to a string representing the day of the week, use a CASE statement. UDF – Function to Get Previous And Next Work Day – Exclude Saturday and Sunday While reading ColdFusion blog of Ben Nadel Getting the Previous Day In ColdFusion, Excluding Saturday And Sunday, I realize that I use similar function on my SQL Server Database. This function excludes the Weekends (Saturday and Sunday), and it gets previous as well as next work day. Complete Series of SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Introduction Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 2 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 3 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers Complete List Download 2008 Introduction to Log Viewer In SQL Server all the windows event logs can be seen along with SQL Server logs. Interface for all the logs is same and can be launched from the same place. This log can be exported and filtered as well. DBCC SHRINKFILE Takes Long Time to Run If you are DBA who are involved with Database Maintenance and file group maintenance, you must have experience that many times DBCC SHRINKFILE operations takes a long time but any other operations with Database are relatively quicker. mssqlsystemresource – Resource Database The purpose of resource database is to facilitates upgrading to the new version of SQL Server without any hassle. In previous versions whenever version of SQL Server was upgraded all the previous version system objects needs to be dropped and new version system objects to be created. 2009 Puzzle – Write Script to Generate Primary Key and Foreign Key In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), there is no option to script all the keys. If one is required to script keys they will have to manually script each key one at a time. If database has many tables, generating one key at a time can be a very intricate task. I want to throw a question to all of you if any of you have scripts for the same purpose. Maximizing View of SQL Server Management Studio – Full Screen – New Screen I had explained the following two different methods: 1) Open Results in Separate Tab - This is a very interesting method as result pan shows up in a different tab instead of the splitting screen horizontally. 2) Open SSMS in Full Screen - This works always and to its best. Not many people are aware of this method; hence, very few people use it to enhance performance. 2010 Find Queries using Parallelism from Cached Plan T-SQL script gets all the queries and their execution plan where parallelism operations are kicked up. Pay attention there is TOP 10 is used, if you have lots of transactional operations, I suggest that you change TOP 10 to TOP 50 This is the list of the all the articles in the series of computed columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage This article talks about how computed columns are created and why they take more storage space than before. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance This article talks about how PERSISTED columns give better performance than non-persisted columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance – Part 2 This article talks about how non-persisted columns give better performance than PERSISTED columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column and Performance – Part 3 This article talks about how Index improves the performance of Computed Columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage – Part 2 This article talks about how creating index on computed column does not grow the row length of table. SQL SERVER – Computed Columns – Index and Performance This article summarized all the articles related to computed columns. 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 21 of 31 What is Data Warehousing? What is Business Intelligence (BI)? What is a Dimension Table? What is Dimensional Modeling? What is a Fact Table? What are the Fundamental Stages of Data Warehousing? What are the Different Methods of Loading Dimension tables? Describes the Foreign Key Columns in Fact Table and Dimension Table? What is Data Mining? What is the Difference between a View and a Materialized View? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 22 of 31 What is OLTP? What is OLAP? What is the Difference between OLTP and OLAP? What is ODS? What is ER Diagram? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 23 of 31 What is ETL? What is VLDB? Is OLTP Database is Design Optimal for Data Warehouse? If denormalizing improves Data Warehouse Processes, then why is the Fact Table is in the Normal Form? What are Lookup Tables? What are Aggregate Tables? What is Real-Time Data-Warehousing? What are Conformed Dimensions? What is a Conformed Fact? How do you Load the Time Dimension? What is a Level of Granularity of a Fact Table? What are Non-Additive Facts? What is a Factless Facts Table? What are Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD)? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 24 of 31 What is Hybrid Slowly Changing Dimension? What is BUS Schema? What is a Star Schema? What Snow Flake Schema? Differences between the Star and Snowflake Schema? What is Difference between ER Modeling and Dimensional Modeling? What is Degenerate Dimension Table? Why is Data Modeling Important? What is a Surrogate Key? What is Junk Dimension? What is a Data Mart? What is the Difference between OLAP and Data Warehouse? What is a Cube and Linked Cube with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Snapshot with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Active Data Warehousing? What is the Difference between Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence? What is MDS? Explain the Paradigm of Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball. SQL SERVER – Azure Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Paras Doshi – Day 25 of 31 Paras Doshi has submitted 21 interesting question and answers for SQL Azure. 1.What is SQL Azure? 2.What is cloud computing? 3.How is SQL Azure different than SQL server? 4.How many replicas are maintained for each SQL Azure database? 5.How can we migrate from SQL server to SQL Azure? 6.Which tools are available to manage SQL Azure databases and servers? 7.Tell me something about security and SQL Azure. 8.What is SQL Azure Firewall? 9.What is the difference between web edition and business edition? 10.How do we synchronize On Premise SQL server with SQL Azure? 11.How do we Backup SQL Azure Data? 12.What is the current pricing model of SQL Azure? 13.What is the current limitation of the size of SQL Azure DB? 14.How do you handle datasets larger than 50 GB? 15.What happens when the SQL Azure database reaches Max Size? 16.How many databases can we create in a single server? 17.How many servers can we create in a single subscription? 18.How do you improve the performance of a SQL Azure Database? 19.What is code near application topology? 20.What were the latest updates to SQL Azure service? 21.When does a workload on SQL Azure get throttled? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Malathi Mahadevan – Day 26 of 31 Malachi had asked a simple question which has several answers. Each answer makes you think and ponder about the reality of the IT world. Look at the simple question – ‘What is the toughest challenge you have faced in your present job and how did you handle it’? and its various answers. Each answer has its own story. SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Rick Morelan – Day 27 of 31 Rick Morelan of Joes2Pros has written an excellent blog post on the subject how to find top N values. Most people are fully aware of how the TOP keyword works with a SELECT statement. After years preparing so many students to pass the SQL Certification I noticed they were pretty well prepared for job interviews too. Yes, they would do well in the interview but not great. There seemed to be a few questions that would come up repeatedly for almost everyone. Rick addresses similar questions in his lucid writing skills. 2012 Observation of Top with Index and Order of Resultset SQL Server has lots of things to learn and share. It is amazing to see how people evaluate and understand different techniques and styles differently when implementing. The real reason may be absolutely different but we may blame something totally different for the incorrect results. Read the blog post to learn more. How do I Record Video and Webcast How to Convert Hex to Decimal or INT Earlier I asked regarding a question about how to convert Hex to Decimal. I promised that I will post an answer with Due Credit to the author but never got around to post a blog post around it. Read the original post over here SQL SERVER – Question – How to Convert Hex to Decimal. Query to Get Unique Distinct Data Based on Condition – Eliminate Duplicate Data from Resultset The natural reaction will be to suggest DISTINCT or GROUP BY. However, not all the questions can be solved by DISTINCT or GROUP BY. Let us see the following example, where a user wanted only latest records to be displayed. Let us see the example to understand further. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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