The Effect of Incorrect SQL Data Types

On taking over an existing data transfer and comparison system I was intrigued to notice that a seemingly simple SSIS process was taking over four hours to run - on a daily basis.  Something didn’t seem right, and on investigation it turned out there were lots of improvements to be made.  This blog is covering only one of them: the importance of choosing the correct SQL data types.

My first SSIS project: Part 1

 Helping myself and other beginners gain a better understanding of SSIS

I want to show my understanding and the methods I found from the Internet and colleagues to explain the concepts of SSIS. The reason I am doing this blog is because I want to leave a little bit of a guide for myself. If this blog sheds some light on the functionality of SSIS for you as the reader then that is great.

Some of the blog tutorials I have gone through are either are very vague and sometimes can’t be easily followed, other blogs have too much information and takes a lot of effort to maintain attention on the tutorial. I want my tutorials to be concise and easy to follow. Another reason for the creation of this blog is so that I won’t be constantly searching the internet for stuff I used before in my SSIS projects.

Converting a SAS application into a working SSIS project

My journey began with unveiling my new mission that was given to me by the SQL Secret Services: To unravel if it was possible to convert a current SAS application that was run manually by a user once a week. I was to help the poor unfortunate soul get rid of this burden.

So I began my destined journey to complete the difficult but possible mission.

PowerBI Update

There have been a few rumblings in the PowerBI (Microsoft`s cloud BI solution) world of late.

With the visual analytics and self-service BI world as competitive as it is, this is good news for anyone who has a strategy built on the Microsoft BI toolset.

Here are the highlights:

GIF Animations in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer(IE) has an inherent problem with animating .gif images which are originally hidden.
The reason is that IE loads the .gif but does not start the animation when it is hidden.
Unfortunately the animation does not start when it made visible thus appearing to be frozen.

Choosing the Right BI Platform

In any business environment the critical mission is staying ahead of your competitors and ahead of the economy, choosing the right business intelligence (BI) platform can give you the competitive advantage you need for success. Taking time up front to evaluate your current environment and to define your goals and objectives are key in identifying a solution that will best fit your organization's needs and ensure long term success.

Can someone give me a Template please?

Can someone give me a Template please?

In this post I’m going to explain how to create a custom template that you can add to your Report Server and it will then appear in the Visual Studio installed templates list when you add a new report to your project.

SSIS variables: DateTime data type has no milliseconds

Everyone who has written more than few SQL queries is well aware of the issues that can occur when dealing with dates and times.  After a while you develop methods for getting around different date formats and eventually feel pretty confident that you are on top of the situation.  It’s always good to be aware that there are lots of places in the development world that can trip you up.

Validation in Stored proc or Code

I believe validating data in a stored proc is better:

-IF you have more than one app looking at that stored proc, the validation is done only once.
-When rules need to be changed, they only changed at one central point.

Data Modelling Made Easy

Challenged with the typical time and resources constraints at an entrepreneurial client where rapid LOB system changes are eminent, modelling their data had to be fast and to the point. In order to focus on the business needs with only pockets of time available with decision makers, we needed a tool that is easy to understand and use but comprehensive enough to build the core data warehouse collaboratively whilst abstracting the technical side, in one step.

What is SDLC?

SDLC is a process followed for a software project, within a software organisation. It consists of a detailed plan describing how to develop, maintain, replace and alter or enhance specific software. The life cycle defines a methodology for improving the quality of software and the overall development process.

Customizing Report Manager Home Page

Customizing Report Manager Home Page 

Reporting Services provides default cascading style sheets (.css) files that define styles for the report toolbar in HTML Viewer and for Report Manager’s homepage. In this post we are going to modify the default styles to change the colours, fonts, and layout of the tool bar or Report Manager.

Simple ASP.NET MVC 4 explanation

This post is mainly to assist developers to understand how ASP.NET MVC 4 works and how it fits together to create one AWESOME solution.

I was sceptic at first about ASP.NET MVC (coming from a drag drop ASP.NET Web Forms background) and thought it was just another way of trying to complicate the life of a developer until I started researching ASP.NET MVC.

This example project does not have any fancy styling, I want to put more focus on the MVC.

Each section contain examples on how to get your MVC project up and running as fast as possible.

The topics covered in this post:

• Starting your project
• Models
• Views
• Controllers
• How ASP.NET MVC makes your life easier

New Virtual Labs for Power BI and SQL Server 2014

I am sure I am not the only one with the dilemma of testing out the new functionality released in the latest versions of the Microsoft SQL Server Stack.

Many times I don`t have the Software handy or I simply don`t have the time/space/willpower to install and configure the toolsets required. 

In comes the Microsoft TechNet Virtual Labs. 

Phone 8 & Azure Mobile Services - Toast Notifications

Plugging in notification services for Windows8, using azure was easy. So it should be the same for phone 8 right? Well we were wrong. A day later we got it waxed, but for the life of me i cant figure out why it has to be like this - perhaps i missed something.

Performance on large tables

Data volumes are exploding in every business where a Database or BI professional might find himself. Subsequently data warehouse and decision support systems to keep up with this growth,  and are expected to perform at the same levels while offering even deeper insights into what the data is actually saying.

ToExcel() Extension Method

I recently had a migraine inducing problem where I needed to save an object to an Excel file which, at first glance I thought would be something easy and simple to do... However Nu-Get's Excel libraries are not as abundant as one would think. After doing some research I finally found a library worth its salt, presenting ExtremeML.

ASP.NET Web API <#= Proxy to T4 #>

One of the coolest new features of ASP.NET is Web API, which allows you to build powerful RESTful services exposed over HTTP. HTTP is not just for serving up web pages, but it provides a platform for building APIs that expose services and data. It is simple, flexible, and ubiquitous.

ASP.NET Web API is all about REST HTTP Services. Unlike Web Services, it does not expose an end-point for meta-data exchange. When consuming a HTTP Service, you will have to create your own client-side code that must serve as a proxy for interfacing with the API.

Like any other WCF junkie out there, I've been working with Windows Communication Foundation for quite some time now implementing Web Services. Not only is it flexible and extensible, but it offers inter-operability, multiple message patterns, transactions and  meta-data exchange etc.

The nice thing about WCF is meta-data exchange, which allows you to generate the client-side proxy-code, contracts and classes used for talking to the service. On the other hand, ASP.NET Web API is more light-weight, operates only via HTTP and is used more for serving CRUD-based operations. The latter, however, does not have functionality (yet) for exposing service meta-data. Until now...

Some API "best suggestions"

In today’s modern world of computing it’s a no-brainer to expose some kind of service for the outside world to access your enterprise platform in a controlled fashion. Because of good old legacy systems, we all know that “the perfect world” never exists in any of our clients’ current environment. There are always compatibility issues regarding unified communication between these systems and we end up building all kinds of middle layers to facilitate this interaction. The latter makes it a nightmare to implement any kind of external service.

By building a platform with a collection of loosely coupled components and exposing specific functionality via an unified interface is much better than having all kinds of silo systems talking to each other. We can achieve this by implementing an API over REST (Representational state transfer).

Train yourself, yourself

Getting skilled up is the only way to stay alive in the IT services business, and the best way to do that is hands-on experience.  But it isn’t always easy to explore a new tech or skill if you are not working on a project that it is being used on, apart from time constraints the hardware and software you need may be lacking. So I decided to post a couple of things I`ve come across to help in this regard. And since I`m a SQL guy, I will focus on SQL type things.

I`m not saying formal, class based or course-type training is useless, it is great to introduce you to a new field and get you going quicker, but to become skilled, it will have to be some dirt under the nails stuff.
 

So let`s start at the beginning.