SQL Saturday #233 Oklahoma City

SQL Saturday comes to Oklahoma City on August 24th for a free day of SQL Server training and networking. This event also features a paid-for pre conference session on Friday with Bill Pearson on Practical Self-Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel.

SQLServerCentral.com Users Survey 2013

We want to make sure we're covering the things that are relevant to you, so we're asking for some feedback on what you use on SSC, where we need to improve, and what you'd like to see.

It should only take a few minutes, and three randomly-selected people will win a $100 Amazon gift card for their efforts.

Biml Workshop presented by Varigence and Linchpin People

Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) automates your BI patterns and eliminates the manual repetition that consumes most of your time. On October 15th come see why BI professionals around the world think Biml is the future of data integration and BI.

Concatenation of Different SQL Server Data Types

TSQL provides 2 ways to concatenate data, the + sign and the new CONCAT() function. This tip will cover the differences in the two, so you can achieve the expected behavior in your code.

An Introduction to Windows Azure BLOB Storage

Azure BLOB storage is persistent Cloud data storage that serves a variety of purposes. Mike Wood shows the basics of how to use it, from start through to snapshots and metadata; both from .NET, and by using the free tool, Cerebrata Azure Explorer.

SQL Saturday #240 Curacao

QL Saturday is coming to Curacao, Netherlands Antilles for a free day of SQL Server training and Networking on August 17. There will also be a pre-conference session on Practical Self-Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel.

Using Microsoft Excel to Retrieve SSAS Tabular Data

Although it is well-known how to create a tabular database in PowerPivot, it is less obvious that there are several useful options for retrieving SSAS tabular data into Excel. This provides an easy way of manipulating, visualizing and analyzing the data without needing to know the details of SSAS and the tabular model.

New SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Failed SQL Server logins

This metric returns the number of ‘login failed’ error messages found in the SQL Server error log file in the last hour.

SQL Saturday #235 New York City, NY

Come to SQL Saturday New York on August 17 for a day of free SQL Server training and networking. Some of the speakers at this event include Chris Bell, Ben DeBow, Ashish Sharma, and Hilary Cotter

The Big Data DBA

Many IT enterprises are starting pilot projects to implement big data solutions. This article highlights what you need to know to check if you're ready to support these efforts, and integrate them into your current architecture, processes, and standards.