Changing the structure of a very large table doesn't need to require a maintenance window.  Read more...

This white paper provides practical guidance to help BI professionals and decision makers decide whether SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services tabular or multidimensional modeling provides the best fit for your next BI solution.  Read more...

On Thursday January 19th at 12 noon Central, Audrey Hammonds will discuss renovating your data model while keeping you’re the production system humming  Read more...

SQL is a powerful tool for querying data, and for aggregating it. However, you can't easily use it to draw inferences, to make predictions, or to tease out subtle correlations. To provide ever more sophisticated inferences to businesses, the race is on to combine the power of the relational model with advanced statistical packages. Both IBM and PostGres are ready with solutions. And SQL Server? Hmm...  Read more...

Changing the structure of a very large table doesn't need to require a maintenance window.  Read more...

Hierarchical structures have an inherent ability for significant data value increases beyond the data collected. This will be shown to exist in hierarchical structures and even more powerfully in their natural hierarchical processing capabilities. These will demonstrate flexible and efficient ways to increase data value automatically and will be discussed in this article. SQL will be used to perform a wide range of hierarchical processing operations that easily demonstrate these increasing data value capabilities.  Read more...

The capability of extending the limits of combining multiple node hierarchical structures has not been fully explored. Michael M. David presents a solution to advanced structure combining that is simple to use, generic and freely extends the way hierarchical structures can be semantically combined to produce advanced new hierarchical data structure mashups that dynamically increase the value of the data.  Read more...

Do you put an identity column on every table? That might be a bad habit you want to kick, but not all at once. Steve Jones comments on this common data modeling practice.  Read more...

Some developers have reacted with dismay to the recent news that Microsoft’s Oslo project is being integrated into the SQL Server platform and renamed SQL Server Modeling. The overwhelming feeling seems to be that their DSL dream is being snatched away.  Read more...

Data quality is important in a database, but so many people fail to implement good referential integrity. New author Marvin Elder brings us an article that looks at surrogate keys for ensuring data quality.  Read more...

You may think that the task of teasing out the exact nature of the data and processes within a company...  Read more...

Data modeling is based on the precept of knowing your data and knowing how the data is interrelated with other data. Everyone knows their data – right? If so, then why do we have so many problems building systems that do what the users want?  Read more...

Bill Lewis describes the benefits of an application development environment in which all data dependencies begin and remain clearly, precisely and explicitly defined.  Read more...

Here the author answers questions regarding the Entity Framework and provides an understanding of how and why it was developed.  Read more...

Business Intelligence Architect Bill Pearson continues his subseries surrounding components of the Analysis Services dimensional model. In the second half of this article, we extend our focus on dimensions to include property settings for Cube Dimensions.  Read more...

This is the eighth article in a continuing series, and this installment discusses the Data Steward Coordinator.  Read more...

This is the seventh article in a continuing series, and this installment discusses the tactical layer of the Data Governance Framework.  Read more...

This is the sixth article in a continuing series, and this installment discusses the establishment and role of a Data Governance Council.  Read more...

5 quick tips to help you become a better data modeler and increase your value to your team and organization.  Read more...

Part 5 looks at beginning with a Data Governance Best Practice Assessment  Read more...