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• Big Data – Interacting with Hadoop – What is PIG? – What is PIG Latin? – Day 16 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the HIVE in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand what is PIG and PIG Latin in Big Data Story. Yahoo started working on Pig for their application deployment on Hadoop. The goal of Yahoo to manage their unstructured data. What is Pig and What is Pig Latin? Pig is a high level platform for creating MapReduce programs used with Hadoop and the language we use for this platform is called PIG Latin. The pig was designed to make Hadoop more user-friendly and approachable by power-users and nondevelopers. PIG is an interactive execution environment supporting Pig Latin language. The language Pig Latin has supported loading and processing of input data with series of transforming to produce desired results. PIG has two different execution environments 1) Local Mode – In this case all the scripts run on a single machine. 2) Hadoop – In this case all the scripts run on Hadoop Cluster. Pig Latin vs SQL Pig essentially creates set of map and reduce jobs under the hoods. Due to same users does not have to now write, compile and build solution for Big Data. The pig is very similar to SQL in many ways. The Ping Latin language provide an abstraction layer over the data. It focuses on the data and not the structure under the hood. Pig Latin is a very powerful language and it can do various operations like loading and storing data, streaming data, filtering data as well various data operations related to strings. The major difference between SQL and Pig Latin is that PIG is procedural and SQL is declarative. In simpler words, Pig Latin is very similar to SQ Lexecution plan and that makes it much easier for programmers to build various processes. Whereas SQL handles trees naturally, Pig Latin follows directed acyclic graph (DAG). DAGs is used to model several different kinds of structures in mathematics and computer science. DAG Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Zookeeper. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

  3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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• Windows Azure Use Case: High-Performance Computing (HPC)

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: High-Performance Computing (also called Technical Computing) at its most simplistic is a layout of computer workloads where a “head node” accepts work requests, and parses them out to “worker nodes'”. This is useful in cases such as scientific simulations, drug research, MatLab work and where other large compute loads are required. It’s not the immediate-result type computing many are used to; instead, a “job” or group of work requests is sent to a cluster of computers and the worker nodes work on individual parts of the calculations and return the work to the scheduler or head node for the requestor in a batch-request fashion. This is typical to the way that many mainframe computing use-cases work. You can use commodity-based computers to create an HPC Cluster, such as the Linux application called Beowulf, and Microsoft has a server product for HPC using standard computers, called the Windows Compute Cluster that you can read more about here. The issue with HPC (from any vendor) that some organization have is the amount of compute nodes they need. Having too many results in excess infrastructure, including computers, buildings, storage, heat and so on. Having too few means that the work is slower, and takes longer to return a result to the calling application. Unless there is a consistent level of work requested, predicting the number of nodes is problematic. Implementation: Recently, Microsoft announced an internal partnership between the HPC group (Now called the Technical Computing Group) and Windows Azure. You now have two options for implementing an HPC environment using Windows. You can extend the current infrastructure you have for HPC by adding in Compute Nodes in Windows Azure, using a “Broker Node”.  You can then purchase time for adding machines, and then stop paying for them when the work is completed. This is a common pattern in groups that have a constant need for HPC, but need to “burst” that load count under certain conditions. The second option is to install only a Head Node and a Broker Node onsite, and host all Compute Nodes in Windows Azure. This is often the pattern for organizations that need HPC on a scheduled and periodic basis, such as financial analysis or actuarial table calculations. References: Blog entry on Hybrid HPC with Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ignitionshowcase/archive/2010/12/13/high-performance-computing-on-premise-and-in-the-windows-azure-cloud.aspx  Links for further research on HPC, includes Windows Azure information: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ncdevguy/archive/2011/02/16/handy-links-for-hpc-and-azure.aspx 

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• Deploying Socket.IO App to Windows Azure Web Site with Azure CLI

  - by shiju

  In this blog post, I will demonstrate how to deploy Socket.IO app to Windows Azure Website using Windows Azure Cross-Platform Command-Line Interface, which leverages the Windows Azure Website’s new support for Web Sockets. Recently Windows Azure has announced lot of enhancements including the support for Web Sockets in Windows Azure Websites, which lets the Node.js developers deploy Socket.IO apps to Windows Azure Websites. In this blog post, I am using  Windows Azure CLI for create and deploy Windows Azure Website. Install  Windows Azure CLI The Windows Azure CLI available as a NPM module so that you can install Windows Azure CLI using  NPM as shown in the below command. After installing the azure-cli, just enter the command “azure” which will show the useful commands provided by Azure CLI. Import Windows Azure Subscription Account In order to import our Azure subscription account, we need to download the Windows Azure subscription profile. The Azure CLI command “account download” lets you download the  Windows Azure subscription profile as shown in the below command. The command redirect you login to Windows Azure portal and allow you to download the Windows Azure publish settings file. The account import command lets you import the downloaded publish settings file so that you can create and manage Websites, Cloud Services, Virtual Machines and Mobile Services in Windows Azure. Create Windows Azure Website and Enable Web Sockets In this post, we are going to deploy Socket.IO app to Windows Azure Website by using the Web Socket support provided by Windows Azure. Let’s create a Website named “socketiochatapp” using the Azure CLI. The above command will create a Windows Azure Website that will also initialize a Git repository with a remote named Azure. We can see the newly created Website from Azure portal. By default, the Web Sockets will be disabled. So let’s enable it by navigating to the Configure tab of the Website, and select “ON” in Web Sockets option and save the configuration changes. Deploy a Node.js Socket.IO App to Windows Azure Now, our Windows Azure Website supports Web Sockets so that we can easily deploy Socket.IO app to Windows Azure Website. Let’s add Node.js chat app which leverages Socket.IO module. Please note that you have to add npm module dependencies in the package.json file so that Windows Azure can install the dependencies when deploying the app. Let’s add the Node.js app and add the files to git repository. Let’s commit the changes to git repository. We have committed the changes to git local repository. Let’s push the changes to Windows Azure production environment. The successful deployment can see from the Windows Azure portal by navigating to the deployments tab of the selected Windows Azure Website. The screen shot below shows that our chat app is running successfully.   You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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• GlassFish Back from Devoxx 2011 Mature Java EE 6 and EE 7 well on its way

  - by alexismp

  I'm back from my 8th (!) Devoxx conference (I don't think I've missed one since 2004) and this conference keeps delivering on the promise of a Java developer paradise week. GlassFish was covered in many different ways and I was not involved in a good number of them which can only be a good sign! Several folks asked me when my Java EE 6 session with Antonio Goncalves was scheduled (we've been covering this for the past two years in University sessions, hands-on labs and regular sessions). It turns out we didn't team up this year (Antonio was crazy busy preparing for Devoxx France) and I had a regular GlassFish session. Instead, this year, Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker covered the 3-hour Java EE 6 University session ("Duke’s Duct Tape Adventures") on the very first day (using GlassFish) with great success it seems. The Java EE 6 lab was also a hit with a full room of folks covering a lot of technical ground in 2.5 hours (with GlassFish of course). GlassFish was also mentioned during Cameron Purdy's keynote (pretty natural even if that surprised a number of folks that had not been closely following GlassFish) but also in Stephan Janssen's Keynote as the engine powering Parleys.com. In fact Stephan was a speaker in the GlassFish session describing how they went from a single-instance Tomcat setup to a clustered GlassFish + MQ environment. Also in the session was Johan Vos (of Mollom fame, along other things). Both of these customer testimonials were made possible because GlassFish has been delivering full Java EE 6 implementations for almost two years now which is plenty of time to see serious production deployments on it. The Java EE Gathering (BOF) was very well attended and very lively with many spec leads participating and discussing progress and also pain points with folks in the room. Thanks to all those attending this session, a good number of RFE's, and priority points came out of this. While this wasn't a GlassFish session by any means, it's great to have the current RESTful Admin and upcoming Java EE 7 planned features be a satisfactory answer to some of the requests from the attendance. Last but certainly not least, the GlassFish team is busy with Java EE 7 and version 4 of the product. This was discussed and shown during the Java EE keynote and in greater details in Jerome Dochez' session. If any indication, the tweets on his demo (virtualization, provisioning, etc...) were very encouraging. Java EE 6 adoption is doing great and GlassFish, being a production-quality reference implementation, is one of the first to benefit from this. And with GlassFish 4.0, we're looking at increasing the product and community adoption by offering a pragmatic technical solution to Java EE PaaS deployments. Stay tuned ! (the impatient in you is encouraged to grab a 4.0 build and provide feedback).

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• BI Publisher - Hottest Show in Vegas

  - by mike.donohue

  Two days down, two to go. Monday was a very busy and rewarding day. Attended "XML Publisher and FSG for Beginners" given by Susan Behn and Alyssa Johnson from Solution Beacon. It was packed, standing room only ... even though it was at 8:00 am. Later in the afternoon, despite being at the same time and in conflict with other Publisher related sessions, Noelle's session, "The Reporting Platform for Applications: Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" and my session, "Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" were both very well attended. Immediately following our presentations we ran the BI Publisher Hands On Lab which was great fun. The turnout was so large that unfortunately we could not accommodate everyone who came to the lab. There were as many as 5 people huddled around each of the 20 machines. All the the groups completed the 2 main exercises. Some groups even took the product for an off-road test drive. Look at all the fun we had ... For those who could not attend or want the Hands On Lab document: Hands On Lab Oracle BI Publisher Collaborate 2010.pdf Note that these lab instructions assume a specific set up and files that you may not have in your environment. You can download and install a trial license version of BI Publisher from the download page. Highly recommend taking a look at the additional Tutorials available on OTN. Big thanks to Dan Vlamis and Jonathan Clark from Vlamis Software Solutions and to the Oracle BIWA SIG for setting up these machines and getting the time and space to run this lab. It was inspiring to see all of the attendees successfully creating reports. On Tuesday morning we were up early again for a rousing session of BI Publisher Best Practices that was also, very well attended especially considering the 8 am start. Later that morning saw Ben Bruno from STR Software and two of his customers speak on the additional functionality and ROI they have achieved by using Publisher within EBS and AventX to FAX and Email Publisher generated documents. Spent the afternoon staffing the BI Technology demo pod and had a steady flow of people dropping by with questions. Having a great conference so far and looking forward to the rest of it.

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• April 2010 Critical Patch Update Released

  - by eric.maurice

  Hi, this is Eric Maurice. Today Oracle released the April 2010 Critical Patch Update (CPUApr2010),the first one to include security fixes for Oracle Solaris. Today's Critical Patch Update (CPU) provides 47 new security fixes across the following product families: Oracle Database Server, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise, Oracle Life Sciences, Retail, and Communications Industry Suites, and Oracle Solaris. 28 of these 47 new vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable without authentication, but the criticality of the affected components and the severity of these vulnerabilities vary greatly. Customers should, as usual, refer to the Risk Matrices in the CPU Advisory to assess the relevance of these fixes for their environment (and the urgency with which to apply the fixes). 7 of the 47 new vulnerabilities affect various versions of Oracle Database Server. None of these 7 vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable without authentication. Furthermore, none of these fixes are applicable to client-only deployments. The most severe CVSS Base Score for the Database Server vulnerabilities is 7.1. As a reminder, information about Oracle's use of the CVSS 2.0 standard can be found in Note 394487.1 (My Oracle Support subscription required). Note that this Critical Patch Update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that were publicly disclosed by David Litchfield at the BlackHat DC Conference in early February (CVE-2010-0866 and CVE-2010-0867). 5 of the 47 new vulnerabilities affect various components of the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family. The highest CVSS Base Score for these vulnerabilities is 7.5. Note that the patches for Oracle WebLogic Server are cumulative and this Critical Patch Update therefore also includes a fix for a vulnerability (CVE-2010-0073) that was the subject of a Security Alert issued by Oracle on February 4, 2010. Customers, who have not applied the previously-released patch, should apply today's Critical Patch Update as soon as possible. As stated at the beginning of this blog, it is also noteworthy to highlight that this Critical Patch Update provides 16 new fixes for the Sun product line. With the recent close of the Sun acquisition both security organizations have worked diligently to align Sun's previous security practices with Oracle's. Java users know that Oracle released a Critical Patch Update for Java SE and Java For Business earlier this month (in accordance with the Java patching schedule previously published by Sun Microsystems). Please note that for the first time, the Java advisories included CVSS Scores to help assess the severity of the new vulnerabilities fixed with the advisory. The rapid inclusion of the Solaris product lines in the Critical Patch Update and the extension of Oracle Software Security Assurance to Sun technologies are evidence of the flexibility of Oracle's security assurance programs. These should also result in tangible security benefits for the users of the Oracle hardware and software stack (such as a predictable patching schedule for all Oracle products).

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• Silverlight Cream for February 23, 2011 -- #1051

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Ian T. Lackey, Kevin Hoffman, Kunal Chowdhury, Jesse Liberty(-2-), Page Brooks, Deborah Kurata(-2-), and Paul Sheriff. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Building a Radar Control in Silverlight–Part 2" Page Brooks WP7: "Reactive Drag and Drop Part 2" Jesse Liberty Expression Blend: "Simple RadioButtonList and / or CheckBoxList in Silverlight Using a Behavior" Ian T. Lackey Shoutouts: Kunal Chowdhury delivered a full day session on Silverlight at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Championship event in Mumbai... you can Download Microsoft Imagine Cup Session PPT on Silverlight Dennis Doomen has appeared in my blog any number of times... he's looking for some assistance: Get me on stage on the Developer Days 2011 Steve Wortham posted An Interview with Jeff Wilcox From SilverlightCream.com: Simple RadioButtonList and / or CheckBoxList in Silverlight Using a Behavior Ian T. Lackey bemoans the lack of a RadioButtonList or CheckBoxList, and jumps into Blend to show us how to make one using a behavior... and the code is available too! WP7 for iPhone and Android Developers - Introduction to XAML and Silverlight Continuing his series at SilvelightShow for iPhone and Android devs, Kevin Hoffman has part 2 up getting into the UI with an intro to XAML and Silverlight. Day 1: Working with Telerik Silverlight RadControls Kunal Chowdhury kicked my tires that I had missed his Telerik control series... He's detailing his experience getting up to speed with the Silverlight RadControls. Day 1 is intro, what there is, installing, stuff like that. Part 2 continues: Day 2: Working with BusyIndicator of Telerik Silverlight RadControls, followed (so far) by part 3: Day 3: Working with Masked TextBox of Telerik Silverlight RadControls Reactive Drag and Drop Part 2 Jesse Liberty has his 7th part about Rx up ... and the 2nd part of Reactive Drag and Drop, and oh yeah... it's for WP7 as well! Yet Another Podcast #25–Glenn Block / WCF Next Jesse Liberty has Glenn Block on stage for his Yet Another Podcast number 25... talking WCF with Glenn. Building a Radar Control in Silverlight–Part 2 Page Brooks has part 2 of his 'radar' control for Silverlight up... I don't know where I'd use this, but it's darned cool... and the live demo is amazing. Silverlight Charting: Setting Colors Deborah Kurata is looking at the charting controls now, and how to set colors. She begins with a previous post on charts and adds color definitions to that post. Silverlight Charting: Setting the Tooltip Deborah Kurata next gets into formatting the tooltip you can get when the user hovers over a chart to make it make more sense to your user 'Content' is NOT 'Text' in XAML Paul Sheriff discusses the Content property of XAML controls and how it can be pretty much any other XAML you want it to be, then goes on to show some nice examples. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 11/15/2011

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Java Magazine - November/December 2011 - by and for the Java Community Java Magazine is an essential source of knowledge about Java technology, the Java programming language, and Java-based applications for people who rely on them in their professional careers, or who aspire to. Enterprise 2.0 Conference: November 14-17 | Kellsey Ruppel "Oracle is proud to be a Gold sponsor of the Enterprise 2.0 West Conference, November 14-17, 2011 in Santa Clara, CA. You will see the latest collaboration tools and technologies, and learn from thought leaders in Enterprise 2.0's comprehensive conference." The Return of Oracle Wikis: Bigger and Better | @oracletechnet The Oracle Wikis are back - this time, with Oracle SSO on top and powered by Atlassian's Confluence technology. These wikis offer quite a bit more functionality than the old platform. Cloud Migration Lifecycle | Tom Laszewski Laszewski breaks down the four steps in the Set Up Phase of the Cloud Migration lifecycle. Architecture all day. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day - Phoenix, AZ - Dec14 Spend the day with your peers learning from Oracle experts in engineered systems, cloud computing, Oracle Coherence, Oracle WebLogic, and more. Registration is free, but seating is limited. SOA all the Time; Architects in AZ; Clearing Info Integration Hurdles This week on the Architect Home Page on OTN. Live Webcast: New Innovations in Oracle Linux Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 Time: 9:00 AM PT / Noon ET Speakers: Chris Mason, Elena Zannoni. People in glass futures should throw stones | Nicholas Carr "Remember that Microsoft video on our glassy future? Or that one from Corning? Or that one from Toyota?" asks Carr. "What they all suggest, and assume, is that our rich natural 'interface' with the world will steadily wither away as we become more reliant on software mediation." Integration of SABSA Security Architecture Approaches with TOGAF ADM | Jeevak Kasarkod Jeevak Kasarkod's overview of a new paper from the OpenGroup and the SABSA institute "which delves into the incorporatation of risk management and security architecture approaches into a well established enterprise architecture methodology - TOGAF." Cloud Computing at the Tactical Edge | Grace Lewis - SEI Lewis describes the SEI's work with Cloudlets, " lightweight servers running one or more virtual machines (VMs), [that] allow soldiers in the field to offload resource-consumptive and battery-draining computations from their handheld devices to nearby cloudlets." Simplicity Is Good | James Morle "When designing cluster and storage networking for database platforms, keep the architecture simple and avoid the complexities of multi-tier topologies," says Morle. "Complexity is the enemy of availability." Mainframe as the cloud? Tom Laszewski There's nothing new about using the mainframe in the cloud, says Laszewski. Let Devoxx 2011 begin! | The Aquarium The Aquarium marks the kick-off of Devoxx 2011 with "a quick rundown of the Java EE and GlassFish side of things."

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• Data validation best practices: how can I better construct user feedback?

  - by Cory Larson

  Data validation, whether it be domain object, form, or any other type of input validation, could theoretically be part of any development effort, no matter its size or complexity. I sometimes find myself writing informational or error messages that might seem harsh or demanding to unsuspecting users, and frankly I feel like there must be a better way to describe the validation problem to the user. I know that this topic is subjective and argumentative. I've migrated this question from StackOverflow where I originally asked it with little response. Basically, I'm looking for good resources on data validation and user feedback that results from it at a theoretical level. Topics and questions I'm interested in are: Content Should I be describing what the user did correctly or incorrectly, or simply what was expected? How much detail can the user read before they get annoyed? (e.g. Is "Username cannot exceed 20 characters." enough, or should it be described more fully, such as "The username cannot be empty, and must be at least 6 characters but cannot exceed 30 characters."?) Grammar How do I decide between phrases like "must not," "may not," or "cannot"? Delivery This can depend on the project, but how should the information be delivered to the user? Should it be obtrusive (e.g. JavaScript alerts) or friendly? Should they be displayed prominently? Immediately (i.e. without confirmation steps, etc.)? Logging Do you bother logging validation errors? Internationalization Some cultures prefer or better understand directness over subtlety and vice-versa (e.g. "Don't do that!" vs. "Please check what you've done."). How do I cater to the majority of users? I may edit this list as I think more about the topic, but I'm genuinely interested in proper user feedback techniques. I'm looking for things like research results, poll results, etc. I've developed and refined my own techniques over the years that users seem to be okay with, but I work in an environment where the users prefer to adapt to what you give them over speaking up about things they don't like. I'm interested in hearing your experiences in addition to any resources to which you may be able to point me.

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• SSDT - What's in a name?

  - by jamiet

  SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) recently got released as part of SQL Server 2012 and depending on who you believe it can be described as either: a suite of tools for building SQL Server database solutions or a suite of tools for building SQL Server database, Integration Services, Analysis Services & Reporting Services solutions Certainly the SQL Server 2012 installer seems to think it is the latter because it describes SQL Server Data Tools as "the SQL server development environment, including the tool formerly named Business Intelligence Development Studio. Also installs the business intelligence tools and references to the web installers for database development tools" as you can see here: Strange then that, seemingly, there is no consensus within Microsoft about what SSDT actually is. On yesterday's blog post First Release of SSDT Power Tools reader Simon Lampen asked the quite legitimate question:I understand (rightly or wrongly) that SSDT is the replacement for BIDS for SQL 2012 and have just installed this. If this is the case can you please point me to how I can edit rdl and rdlc files from within Visual Studio 2010 and import MS Access reports.To which came the following reply:SSDT doesn't include any BIDs (sic) components. Following up with the appropriate team (Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Integration Services) via their forum or msdn page would be the best way to answer you questions about these kinds of services. That's from a Microsoft employee by the way. Simon is even more confused by this and replies with:I have done some more digging and am more confused than ever. This documentation (and many others) : msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms156280.aspx expressly states that SSDT is where report editing tools are to be foundAnd on it goes....You can see where Simon's confusion stems from. He has official documentation stating that SSDT includes all the stuff for building SSIS/SSAS/SSRS solutions (this is confirmed in the installer, remember) yet someone from Microsoft tells him "SSDT doesn't include any BIDs components".I have been close to this for a long time (all the way through the CTPs) so I can kind of understand where the confusion stems from. To my understanding SSDT was originally the name of the database dev stuff but eventually that got expanded to include all of the dev tools - I guess not everyone in Microsoft got the memo.Does this sound familiar? Have we not been down this road before? The database dev tools have had upteen names over the years (do any of datadude, TSData, VSTS for DB Pros, DBPro, VS2010 Database Projects sound familiar) and I was hoping that the SSDT moniker would put all confusion to bed - evidently its as complicated now as it has ever been.Forgive me for whinging but putting meaningful, descriptive, accurate, well-defined and easily-communicated names onto a product doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do. I guess I'm mistaken!Onwards and upwards...@Jamiet

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• How can I troubleshoot flash player/hardware conflict?

  - by sparthikas

  OBJECTIVE: Have a web browser on my Ubuntu install that can play youtube and hulu videos. Also would like to understand problem so that I can fix it again if I change software. Workarounds welcome, technical understanding and solution preferable. SYMPTOMS: Flash does not run - cannot make the right-click menu appear, an empty box is where video should be, changes to black box when hovering over other links. The "The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed" message does not appear with its sad lego face. cannot activate proprietary graphics driver - causes system to reboot to a prompt. SOLUTIONS TRIED: Replaced OS (tried slackware 13.37, fedora 17, linuxmint 13 maya, gentoo, lubuntu, and even winXP. lubuntu confirmed to work, don't remember how much tweaking, if any, this required. Slack, fedora, mint, and gentoo all failed to run flash just like ubuntu) many reinstalls of flash player via different methods, including cleaning up old installs first, also tried gnash and lightspark. replaced graphics card (replaced HIS IceQ Radeon HD 4670 AGP with older GeForce 5700 LE no change in problem) flash does successfully work on winXP installation with Catalyst AGP hotfix driver applied, however I consider windows wholly unacceptable for web browsing due to lack of security. Lubuntu install also works, however I do not want to be tied down to just using Lubuntu on this computer. SYSINFO: Have latest versions of Ubuntu, Firefox, and Flash on fresh Ubuntu install. Using Gigabyte 7s748 motherboard with Athlon XP 2800+ and 3 GB of RAM with Radeon HD 4670 AGP card, also a Dell soundblaster live series sound card (due to malfunction of onboard sound on motherboard) Wired internet connection, Maxtor 6Y120L3 HDD, Sony DVD RW AW-Q170A, Dell M993s monitor. NOTES: I do not know if the graphics driver issue and the flash troubles are linked. Substitution of older graphics card having same flash troubles seems to suggest they aren't. My troubleshooting method is rather reductionist, consisting mainly of "replace things until you find out what was causing the error by process of elimination" only it seems that this must be a conflict which arises when software decides how to configure itself on my hardware. That is, I know the hardware can run Flash, and I know that on other systems the same software can too, but somehow the combination fails. Consequently I feel out of my depth. I will keep trying things off and on, but I have spent probably about 30 man-hours in the last 4 months working on this problem with no joy other than the lubuntu workaround. Any help will be appreciated, I will be checking back and posting updates. Any pertinent questions regarding me or my computer will be answered, outputs from config files can be accessed and posted (IDK which ones or what parts to post).

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• User Group Meeting Summary - April 2010

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Thanks to everyone who could make it to what turned out to be an excellent SBUG event.  First some thanks to:  Speakers: Anthony Ross and Elton Stoneman Host: The various people at Hitachi who helped to organise and arrange the venue.   Session 1 - Getting up and running with Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus In this session Anthony discussed some considerations for using Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus from a real-world project which Hitachi have been working on with EasyJet.  Anthony also walked through a simplified demo of the concepts which applied on the project.   In addition to the slides and demo it was also very interesting to discuss with the guys involved on this project to hear about their real experiences developing with the Azure Service Bus and some of the limitations they have had to work around in Windows Mobiles ability to interact with the service bus.   On the back of this session we will look to do some further activities around this topic and the guys offered to share their wish list of features for both Windows Mobile and Windows Azure which we will look to share for user group discussion.   Another interesting point was the cost aspects of using the ISB which were very low.   Session 2 - The Enterprise Cache In the second session Elton used a few slides which are based around one of his customer scenario's where they are looking into the concept of an Enterprise Cache within the organisation.  Elton discusses this concept and also a codeplex project he is putting together which allows you to take advantage of a cache with various providers such as Memcached, AppFabric Caching and Ncache.   Following the presentation it was interesting to hear peoples thoughts on various aspects such as the enterprise cache versus an out of process application cache.  Also there was interesting discussion around how people would like to search the cache in the future.   We will again look to put together some follow-up activity on this   Meeting Summary Following the meeting all slide decks are saved in the skydrive location where we keep content from all meetings: http://cid-40015ea59a1307c8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/SBUG/SBUG%20Meetings/2010%20April   Remember that the details of all previous events are on the following page. http://uksoabpm.org/Events.aspx   Competition We had three copies of the Windows Identity Foundation Patterns and Practices book that were raffles on the night, it would be great to hear any feedback on the book from those who won it.   Recording The user group meeting was recorded and we will look to make this available online sometime soon.   UG Business The following things were discussed as general UG topics:   We will change the name of the user group to the UK Connected Systems User Group to we are more inline with other user groups who cover similar topics and we believe this will help us to attract more members.  The content or focus of the user group is not expected to change.   The next meeting is 26th May and can be registered at the following link: http://sbugmay2010.eventbrite.com/

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• Nokia vs. The World

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I’m looking forward to the launch of the Nokia Lumia 920. Why? Well, it stacks up better than the competition for one thing. Then there’s also that security problem that certain other phones have. Mostly, though, it’s because I love my Lumia 900 and the 920, with Windows Phone 8, will be even better. Before I got my Lumia 900, I just took it as given that smart phone cameras couldn’t be good. The Lumia taught me that smart phone cameras can be good if the manufacturer treats them as an important component worth spending time and money on (rather than some thing that consumers expect such that they’d better throw one in). I’m extremely pleased with the quality of pictures that my Lumia 900 gives me as well as the range of settings it provides (you can delve in to tell it a film speed, an f-stop, and a whole range of other settings). And the image stabilization features in the Lumia 920 deliver far better results than the others. Nokia has had great maps for a long time and they continue to improve. Even better, they made a deal that puts many of their excellent maps into Windows Phone 8 itself. There are still Nokia-exclusive features such as Nokia City Lens, of course. But by giving the core OS a great set of fundamental map data and technologies, they help ensure that customers know that buying a Windows Phone 8 will give them a great map experience no matter who made the phone. I’ll be getting a 920, myself, but the HTC and Samsung devices that have been announced have some compelling features, too, and it’s great to know that people who buy one of these won’t need to worry about where their maps might lead them. I’m looking forward to the NFC capabilities and Qi wireless charging my Lumia 920 will have. With the availability of DirectX and C++ programming on Windows Phone 8, I’m also excited about all the great games that will be added to the Windows Phone environment. I love my Xbox Phone. I love my Office phone. I love my Facebook phone. I love my GPS phone. I love my camera phone. I love my SkyDrive phone. In short, I love my Windows Phone!

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• Change default language settings in Visual Studio 2012

  - by sreejukg

  The first thing you need to do after the installation of Visual Studio 2012 is to choose the IDE preferences. Once you select your preferred collection of settings, the IDE will always choose dialogs and other options according to your selection. Nowadays developer’s needs to work with different programming environments and due to this, developers might need to reset the default settings. In this article, I am going to demonstrate how you can change the default settings in Visual Studio 2012. For the purpose of this demonstration, I have installed Visual Studio 2012 and selected C++ as my default environment settings. So now when I go to file -> new project, it will give me C++ templates by default as follows. If you want to select another language, you need to expand Other Languages section and select C# or VB. Now I am going to change these default settings. I am going to change the default language preference to C#. In Visual Studio 2012, go to tools menu and select Import and Export Settings. Here you have 3 options; one is to export the current settings so that the settings are saved for future use. Also you can import previously saved settings. The last option available is to reset it to default. It is a good Idea to export your settings and import it as you need in later stages. To reset the settings to default select the Reset option and click next. Now Visual Studio will ask you to whether you would like to save the settings, which can be used in future to restore. Select any one option and click next. For the purpose of this demo, I have selected not to save the settings. Click Next button to continue. Now Visual Studio will bring you the similar dialog that appears just after installation to select your IDE settings. Select the required settings from the available list and click Finish button. Click Finish once you are done. If everything OK, you will see the success message as below. Now go to file -> new Project, you will see the selected language appear by default. I selected C# in the previous step and the new project dialog appears as follows. Changing IDE settings in Visual Studio 2012 is very easy and straight forward.

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• The Jack LaLanne School of Sysadmins

  - by rickramsey

  Two of my childhood heroes were Tarzan and Jack LaLanne. Tarzan was an obvious choice: what boy wouldn't want to spend his days bungee jumping through the jungle with his own pack of gorillas? Jack Lalanne had a disturbing habit of wearing stretch pants, but he was so damn fit for an old guy that you couldn't help but be impressed. Especially back then, when nobody knew what a dumb bell was, much less Cross-Fit. Here's what he did to celebrate his 70th birthday. Sooner or later we all face a choice in our careers: surrender to the life of a has-been like Bruce Sprinsteen's baseball player or become an unstoppable sysadmin like Jack Lalanne. If you'd rather keep on fighting like Jack, give these resources a look. Brian Bream's blog provides specific suggestions for keeping your skills up to date. The video interviews describe the types of technologies that are challenging what you used to know. Blog: The Old School Sysadmin - A Dying Breed? by Brian Bream "The sysadmin role has been far too dependent on performing repetitive tasks and working in a reactionary mode ... the sysadmin must grow a much larger skill set to be successful. Don’t grow vertically in one technology, grow horizontally amongst many technologies." Just one of the suggestions Brian Bream provides in this excellent blog post. Video: Freeing the Sysadmin From Repetitive Tasks Interview with Marshall Choy Marshall Choy, Director of Optimized Solutions at Oracle was once a sysadmin. And a Solaris engineer. He explains what optimized solutions are, how they are developed and tested, how they handle patching, and how these vertically integrated systems impact the job and duties of a sysadmin. Video: The Oracle Database Appliance Interview with Bob Thome Bob Thome, Senior Director of Product Management, explains what makes the Database Appliance simple, reliable, and affordable, and how it could change the economies and processes of the data center. Video: Why Pinellas County Chose Oracle Exalytics Interview with Gautham Gautham (pronounced like Batman's Gotham) recently led an effort to refresh the Pinellas County hardware systems. He'll explain what they were looking for, why they chose Oracle Exalytics, how they became convinced it was the right decision, and how it changed the way they managed their data center. Video: DTrace for System Administrators Interview with Brendan Gregg This video interview will give you an idea of some of the value-add tasks you can perform when you are freed from the reactive mode that Brian Bream describes in his blog. Brendan Gregg describes the best ways for sysadmins to tune deployed applications to get more performance out of them in their particular computing environment photograph of Ford Mustang GT 500 taken at Gateway Museum copyright by Rick Ramsey -Rick Follow me on: Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Personal Twitter | YouTube | The Great Peruvian Novel

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• ASP.Net or WPF(C#)?

  - by Rachel

  Our team is divided on this and I wanted to get some third-party opinions. We are building an application and cannot decide if we want to use .Net WPF Desktop Application with a WCF server, or ASP.Net web app using jQuery. I thought I'd ask the question here, with some specs, and see what the pros/cons of using either side would be. I have my own favorite and feel I am biased. Ideally we want to build the initial release of the software as fast as we can, then slow down and take time to build in the additional features/components we want later on. Above all we want the software to be fast. Users go through records all day long and delays in loading records or refreshing screens kills their productivity. Application Details: I'm estimating around 100 different screens for initial version, with plans for a lot of additional screens being added on later after the initial release. We are looking to use two-way communication for reminder and event systems Currently has to support around 100 users, although we've been told to allow for growth up to 500 users We have multiple locations Items to consider (maybe not initially in some cases but in future releases): Room for additional components to be added after initial release (there are a lot of of these... perhaps work here than the initial application) Keyboard navigation Performance is a must Production Speed to initial version Low maintenance overhead Future support Softphone/Scanner integration Our Developers: We have 1 programmer who has been learning WPF the past few months and was the one who suggested we use WPF for this. We have a 2nd programmer who is familiar with ASP.Net and who may help with the project in the future, although he will not be working on it much up until the initial release since his time is spent maintaining our current software. There is me, who has worked with both and am comfortable in either We have an outside company doing the project management, and they are an ASP.Net company. We plan on hiring 1-2 others, however we need to know what direction we are going in first Environment: General users are on Windows 2003 server with Terminal Services. They connect using WYSE thin-clients over an RDP connection. Admin staff has their own PCs with XP or higher. Users are allowed to specify their own resolution although they are limited to using IE as the web browser. Other locations connects to our network over a MPLS connection Based on that, what would you choose and why? I am asking here instead of SO because I am looking for opinions and not answers

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• TSAM 11gR1

  - by todd.little

  The Tuxedo System and Application Monitor (TSAM) 11gR1 release provides powerful new application monitoring capabilities, as well as significant improvements in ease of use. The first thing users will notice is the completely redesigned user interface in the TSAM console. Based on Oracle ADF, the console is much easier to navigate, provides a Web 2.0 style interface with dynamically updating panels, and a look and feel familiar to those that have used Oracle Enterprise Manager. Monitoring data can be viewed in both tabular and graphical form and exported to Excel for further analysis. A number of new metrics are collected and displayed in this release. Call path monitoring now displays CPU time, message size, total transport time, and client address giving even more end-to-end information about a specific Tuxedo request. As well the call path display has been completely revamped to make it much easier to see the branches of the call path. The call pattern display now provides statistics on successful vs failed calls, system and application failures, and end-to-end average elapsed time. Service monitoring now displays minimum and maximum message size, CPU usage, and client address. System server monitoring now includes monitoring the SALT gateway servers to provide detailed performance metrics about those servers. Perhaps the most significant new feature is the consolidation of alert definitions and policy management. In previous versions of TSAM, some alerts were defined and checked on the monitored systems while others were defined and checked in the console. Policy management could be performed on both the monitored node via environment variable or command, as well as from the console. Now all alert definitions and policy definitions are only made using the console. For alerts this means that regardless of where the alert is evaluated it is defined in one and only one place. Thus the plug-in alert mechanism of previous releases can now be managed using the TSAM console, making SLA alert definition much easier and cleaner. Finally there is support in TSAM for monitoring rehosted mainframe applications. The newly announced Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS and Batch can be monitored in the TSAM console using traditional mainframe views of the application such as regions. Look for a future blog entry with more details on this as well as some entries providing a glimpse of the console. TSAM gives users a single point for monitoring the performance of all of their Tuxedo applications.

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• World Record Performance on PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials Benchmark on SPARC T4-2

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server achieved World Record performance on Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.1 executing 20 Million Journals lines in 8.92 minutes on Oracle Database 11g Release 2 running on Oracle Solaris 11. This is the first result published on this version of the benchmark. The SPARC T4-2 server was able to process 20 million general ledger journal edit and post batch jobs in 8.92 minutes on this benchmark that reflects a large customer environment that utilizes a back-end database of nearly 500 GB. This benchmark demonstrates that the SPARC T4-2 server with PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 can easily process 100 million journal lines in less than 1 hour. The SPARC T4-2 server delivered more than 146 MB/sec of IO throughput with Oracle Database 11g running on Oracle Solaris 11. Performance Landscape Results are presented for PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.1. Results obtained with PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.1 are not comparable to the the previous version of the benchmark, PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.0, due to significant change in data model and supports only batch. PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark, Version 9.1 Solution Under Test Batch (min) SPARC T4-2 (2 x SPARC T4, 2.85 GHz) 8.92 Results from PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.0. PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark, Version 9.0 Solution Under Test Batch (min) Batch with Online (min) SPARC Enterprise M4000 (Web/App) SPARC Enterprise M5000 (DB) 33.09 34.72 SPARC T3-1 (Web/App) SPARC Enterprise M5000 (DB) 35.82 37.01 Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 128 GB memory Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (for database and redo logs) 2 x Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays and 2 x Sun Storage 2501-M2 arrays (for backup) Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 SRU 7.5 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 Feature Pack 2 PeopleSoft Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.52 latest patch - 8.52.03 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.5 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Benchmark Description The PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.1 benchmark emulates a large enterprise that processes and validates a large number of financial journal transactions before posting the journal entry to the ledger. The validation process certifies that the journal entries are accurate, ensuring that ChartFields values are valid, debits and credits equal out, and inter/intra-units are balanced. Once validated, the entries are processed, ensuring that each journal line posts to the correct target ledger, and then changes the journal status to posted. In this benchmark, the Journal Edit & Post is set up to edit and post both Inter-Unit and Regular multi-currency journals. The benchmark processes 20 million journal lines using AppEngine for edits and Cobol for post processes. See Also Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark White Papers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Financial Management oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 1 October 2012.

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

  3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 25 (sys.dm_db_missing_index_details)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_db_missing_index_details Dynamic Management View is used to return information about missing indexes on your SQL Server instances. These indexes are ones that the optimizer has identified as indexes it would like to use but did not have. You may also see these same indexes indicated in other tools such as query execution plans or the Database tuning advisor. Let’s execute this DMV so we can review the information it provides us. I do not have any missing index information for my AdventureWorks2012 database, but for the purposes of illustrating the result set of this DMV, I will present the results from my msdb database. SELECT * FROM sys.dm_db_missing_index_details The first column presented is the index_handle which uniquely identifies a particular missing index. The next two columns represent the database_id and the object_id for the particular table in question. Next is the ‘equality_columns’ column which gives you a list of columns (comma separated) that would be beneficial to the optimizer for equality operations. By equality operation I mean for any queries that would use a filter or join condition such as WHERE A = B. The next column, ‘inequality_columns’, gives you a comma separated list of columns that would be beneficial to the optimizer for inequality operations. An inequality operation is anything other than A = B. For example, “WHERE A != B”, “WHERE A > B”, “WHERE A < B”, and “WHERE A <> B” would all qualify as inequality. Next is the ‘included_columns’ column which list all columns that would be beneficial to the optimizer for purposes of providing a covering index and preventing key/bookmark lookups. Lastly is the ‘statement’ column which lists the name of the table where the index is missing. This DMV can help you identify potential indexes that could be added to improve the performance of your system. However, I will advise you not to just take the output of this DMV and create an index for everything you see. Everything listed here should be analyzed and then tested on a Development or Test system before implementing into a Production environment. For more information on this DMV, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345434.aspx Follow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

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• Book review: Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite Unleashed

  - by BuckWoody

  I know, I know – what’s a database guy doing reading a book on System Center? Well, I need it from time to time. System Center is actually a collection of about 7 different products that you can use to manage and monitor your software and hardware, from drive space through Microsoft Office, UNIX systems, and yes, SQL Server. It’s that last part I care about the most, and so I’ve dealt with Data Protection Manager and System Center Operations Manager (I call it SCOM) in SQL Server. But I wasn’t familiar with the rest of the suite nor was I as familiar as I needed to be with the “Essentials” release – a separate product that groups together the main features of System Center into a single offering for smaller organizations. These companies usually run with a smaller IT shop, so they sometimes opt for this product to help them monitor everything, including SQL Server. So I picked up “Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite Unleashed” by Chris Amaris and a cast of others. I don’t normally like to get a technical book by multiple authors – I just find that most of the time it’s quite jarring to switch from author to author, but I think this group did pretty well here.  The first chapter on introducing System Center has helped me talk with others about what the product does, and which pieces fit well together with SQL Server. The writing is well done, and I didn’t find a jump from author to author as I went along. The information is sequential, meaning that they lead you from install to configuration and then use. It’s very much a concepts-and-how-to book, and a big one at that – over 950 pages of learning! It was a pretty quick read, though, since I skipped the installation parts and there are lots of screenshots. While I’m not sure you’d be an expert on the product when you finish reading this book, but I would say you’re more than halfway there. I would say it suits someone that learns through examples the best, since they have a lot of step-by-step examples I do recommend that you take a look if you have to interact with this product, or even if you are a smaller shop and you’re the primary IT resource. The last few chapters deal with System Center Essentials, and honestly it was the best part of the book for me. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Microsoft Desktop Player is a Valuable Tool for IT Pro’s

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you are an IT Professional, a new education tool introduced by Microsoft is the MS Desktop Player. Today we take a look at what it has to offer, from Webcasts, White Papers, Training Videos, and more. Microsoft Desktop Player You can run the player from the website (shown here) or download the application for use on your local machine (link below). It allows you to easily access MS training and information in a central interface. To get the Desktop version, download the .msi file from the site… And run through the installer…   When you first start out, enter in if you’re an IT Pro, Developer and your role. Then you can decide on the resources you’re looking for such as Exchange Server, SharePoint, Windows 7, Security…etc. Here is an example of checking out a Podcast on Office 2007 setup and configuration from TechNet radio. Under Settings you can customize your search results and local resources. This helps you narrow down pertinent information for your needs. If you find something you really like, hover the pointer over the screen and you can add it to your library, share it, send feedback, and check for additional resources. If you don’t need items in your library they can be easily deleted. Under the News tab you get previews of Microsoft news items, clicking on it will open the full article in a separate browser. While you’re watching a presentation you can show or hide the details related to it. Conclusion Microsoft Desktop Player is currently in Beta, but has a lot of cool features to offer for your learning needs. You can easily find Podcasts, Webcasts, and more without having to browse all over the place. In our experience we didn’t notice any bugs, and what it offers so far works well. If you’re a geek who’s constantly browsing TechNet and other Microsoft learning sites, this helps keep everything consolidated in one app.  Download Microsoft Desktop Player Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesBuilt-in Quick Launch Hotkeys in Windows VistaNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineHow to Get Virtual Desktops on Windows XPWindows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe) TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool

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• Exploding maps in Reporting Services 2008 R2

  - by Rob Farley

  Kaboom! Well, that was the imagery that secretly appeared in my mind when I saw “USA By State Exploded” in the list of installed maps in Report Builder 3.0 – part of the spatial offering of SQL Server Reporting Server 2008 R2. Alas, it just means that the borders are bigger. Clicking on it showed me. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in maps of the US. None of my clients are there (at least, not yet – feel free to get in touch if you want to change this ‘feature’ of my company). So instead, I’ve recently been getting hold of some data for Australian areas. I’ve just bought some PostCode shapes for South Australia, and will use this in demos for conferences and for showing clients how this kind of report can really impact their reporting. One of the companies I was talking about getting shape files sent me a sample. So I chose the “ESRI shapefile” option you see above, and browsed to my file. It appeared in the window like this: Australians will immediately recognise this as the area around Wollongong, just south of Sydney. Well, apart from me. I didn’t. I had to put a Bing Maps layer behind it to work that out, but that’s not for this post. The thing that I discovered was that if I selected the Exploded USA option (but without clicking Next), and then chose my shape file, then my area around Wollongong would be exploded too! Huh! I think this is actually a bug, but a potentially useful one! Some further investigation (involving creating two identical reports, one with this exploded view, one without), showed that the Exploded View is done by reducing the ScaleFactor property of the PolygonLayer in the map control. The Exploded version has it below 1. If you set to above one, your shapes overlap. I discovered this by accident… I guess I hadn’t looked through all the PolygonLayer options to work out what they all do. And because this post is about Reporting, it can qualify for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, hosted by Aaron Nelson (@sqlvariant). Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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