Post reply

Necessary tools, helpful sites

  • July 21, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    #310072

    I'm in the process of converting a box at home to be a SQL server to reeducate myself in BI and SQL. It's been a few years, but is there anything essential that I need? I know a few years ago BIDS was what I did everything in for SSIS and SSAS and that MS was moving to another platform, SSDT I think.

    Are there anything, besides Notepad++ that are absolutely essential?

  • July 21, 2015 at 5:31 pm

    #1813983

    You are on the right track. SSDT is the new BIDS. Notepad++ is still essential ;-).

    My personal opinion is to learn/freshen up on XML; knowing XML has been extremely helpful in my BI career. Note that SSIS packages are XML, OLAP cubes are too (for the most part). MDX is based on XMLA which is based on XML. SSRS Reports are XML. XML is a vital tool for good BI pro's IMHO.

    "I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

    -- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001

  • July 21, 2015 at 8:10 pm

    #1813990

    Excellent, thanks for the tip. It was definitely going that way when I was moving from SQL to C#, so I'll brush up.

  • July 22, 2015 at 1:16 am

    #1814016

    You might want to make sure you have MS office and power view plugins as well. A key part of the MS BI plan is to enabled self service via Execl and Powerpoint and PowerBI , Power view are part of the certification track itself. Knowlede of DAX is almost important.

    Jayanth Kurup[/url]

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply