When considering business intelligence (BI) software, it is essential to be aware of underlying issues that can seriously impact on your bottom line. In a country where most businesses have information stored in several different databases, it’s no secret that the BI strategy you choose will effect your profit and loss target. From data collection and integration to data analysis, the holy grail of Business Intelligence software combines your disparate databases to provide a decision support system that will enable you to make key conclusions using all of the available information.

Brooke Philpott of sqlSentry

by Andy Warren

SQLServerCentral.com

Interviews

The guys that build software rarely get exposure of credit. Maybe that's why so many of them turn to open source where they get more well known. After a meeting at TechEd 2005, Andy Warren had the chance to get some interesting interview questions answered by Brooke Philpott, one of the 2 core developers of sqlSentry. And not a marketing guy.

Improving Performance with SQL Server 2005 Indexed Views

by Additional Articles

TechNet Blogs

Administration

This document describes the improved indexed views capability of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. Indexed views are explained and specific scenarios in which they may provide performance improvements are discussed.

PromptSQL Review

by Brian Kelley

SQLServerCentral.com

Product and Book Reviews

Do you want intellisense for Query Analyzer? Many people would love this amazing enhancement that has long been available for Visual Studio users. It is now available as an add-in from PromptSQL and Brian Kelley reviews this amazing product.

Row_Number() function in SQL Server 2005

by Additional Articles

Database Journal

T-SQL

As we all know, SQL Server 2005 has new features when compared to SQL Server 2000. One of the features that we are going to discuss in this article is the Row_Number() function. SQL Server Database administrators and developers have been longing for this function for a long time--now the wait is over.

SQL Server and MOM 2005

by Additional Articles

Database Journal

Monitoring

In this series of articles, you will learn the basics of installing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 as well as how to use MOM to monitor SQL Server. This article takes advantage of virtualization. We will use VMware Workstation 5 to create the lab to introduce you to the basics of installing MOM to monitor SQL Server.

Working With System Tables

by Alex Grinberg

SQLServerCentral.com

SQL Puzzles

It's not recommended, but sometimes writing scripts against the system tables and getting information is a great way to work with SQL Server. Alex Grinberg brings us a look at some of the things you can get from system tables along with some sample scripts.

Downloading a file over HTTP using SSIS

by Additional Articles

sqljunkies.com

Integration Services (SSIS)

A question came up on an internal alias about how can one download a file over HTTP. Here's a script that does that, should be trivial to wrap it inside a task if you forsee doing this over and over again.

How to use a Script Transformation in SSIS

by Brian Knight

White Knight Technology

Integration Services (SSIS)

This shows you how to use the Script Transform to make intelligent decisions about your data and clean it appropriately.

A Review of sqlSentry 2.5

by Brian Knight

SQLServerCentral.com

Product and Book Reviews

In this review, Brian reviews one of his favorite tools in his DBA toolkit. He shows you some of the new features in this event management system and how it can shave hours off your day each day.

The CEO’s Guide to The Top 5 Issues that Misguide Business Intelligenc

Brooke Philpott of sqlSentry

Improving Performance with SQL Server 2005 Indexed Views

PromptSQL Review

Row_Number() function in SQL Server 2005

SQL Server and MOM 2005

Working With System Tables

Downloading a file over HTTP using SSIS

How to use a Script Transformation in SSIS

A Review of sqlSentry 2.5

Blogs

Dynamically Unpivot columns in SQL

Friday Basics: RPO and RTO

A New Word: ioia

Forums

SQL Server Encrypt data into a file, send it and then decrypt

Table partitioning best practice

Identifying Customer Buying Pattern in Power BI - Part 2

Question of the Day

Finding Marks