Additional Articles

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Technical Article

Building Real-World Microsoft BI Dashboards Today

There is a lot of Microsoft buzz about Power BI and Excel these days, but customers need real-world, professional business intelligence solutions that meet their complex real-world requirements today. In this article, Jen Underwood shares what technologies were used to develop a dashboard solution for a Fortune Global 500 company using Microsoft Business Intelligence technologies, and why. Some of the decisions may surprise you and the lessons learned are sure to be of value.

2013-11-07

5,745 reads

External Article

Getting Started with Columnstored Index in SQL Server 2014 – Part 2

Column Store Index, which improves performance of data warehouse queries several folds, was first introduced in SQL Server 2012. Though it had several limitations, now SQL Server 2014 enhances the columnstore index and overcomes several of the earlier limitations. In this article, Arshad Ali discusses how you can get started using the enhanced columnstore index feature in SQL Server 2014 and do some performance tests.

2013-11-06

4,375 reads

External Article

Fundamentals of Vendor Management

Creating and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with external vendors is one of the pillars of good project management. Dwain Camps goes through what to expect and allow in your client-vendor relationship during the various stages of a given project to ensure its success and secure that all important win-win outcome.

2013-11-04

2,844 reads

External Article

Tuning Distributed Applications to Access Big Data

Distributed applications are just that: distributed across one or more hardware platforms across the enterprise. The database administrator (DBA) has the unenviable task of monitoring these environments and configuring and tuning the database server to meet multiple needs. As multiple distributed applications now require access to a very large data store, what tuning options are available to help?

2013-10-31

3,024 reads

External Article

The ETL from Hell - Diagnosing Batch System Performance Issues

Too often, the batch systems that underlie a lot of database processing just grow without conscious design. When runs start to extend beyond their allotted time, and tuning no longer solves the problem, it is often discovered that batches are run in series, with draconian error handling. It is time to impose some rational design, and Nigel is a seasoned healer of batch processes.

2013-10-30

3,753 reads

External Article

SSIS Basics: Using the Merge Join Transformation

SSIS is able to take sorted data from more than one OLE DB data source and merge them into one table which can then be sent to an OLE DB destination. This 'Merge Join' transformation works in a similar way to a SQL join by specifying a 'join key' relationship. this transformation can save a great deal of processing on the destination. Annette Allen, as usual, gives clear guidance on how to do it.

2013-10-28

4,491 reads

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Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy Stuff

By Grant Fritchey

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy...

UNISTR Escape

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item UNISTR Escape

Celebrating Tomorrow

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Celebrating Tomorrow

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Question of the Day

UNISTR Escape

In SQL Server 2025, I run this command: 

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C\3068 and good night', '*') as "A Classic";
What is returned? (assume the database has an appropriate collation) A: B: C:

See possible answers