SQL Mag Experts… Now Appearing on ITTV.net!
There’s a brand-new video Web site that has joined the Sqlmag.com and Windowsitpro.com family: ITTV .net. On ITTV.net, you’ll find video interviews with technical authorities and industry experts on a range of topics of interest to DBAs, developers, and IT professionals. For example, at TechEd 2008 in June, SQL Server Magazine Technical Director Michael Otey and contributing author Erin Welker had a video chat with Senior Editor Sheila Molnar about their impressions of the new business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing features in SQL Server 2008. Here are some of the highlights of the conversation.
“They’ve made some improvements on how partitions are processed during the queries,” Erin said. “And another thing I’m really excited about… is partitionaligned indexed views, which will make it a lot easier to implement aggregation, much like you would in Analysis Services.”
“On the BI side, there have been some really interesting improvements for SQL Server Integration Services… some very nice performance enhancements there,” Michael said. “The same is true with \[SQL Server\] Reporting Services. It’s quite a bit faster. And the integration of the Office components: I know they’ve made an agreement with SoftArtisans to bring part of their OfficeWriter product into Reporting Services, and I think those are all good moves to help surface out the information in SQL Server to the end users.”
Check out the rest of the video at ittv.net/VideoPlayer/tabid/57/VideoId/26/SQL-Server-Round-Table-Discussion-With-Mike-Otey--Erin-Welker.aspx. And keep an eye on the ITTV.net home page for the latest videos.
Information Gems in Online Reader Comments
You might like the reader comments section at the end of Sqlmag.com articles because it lets you give feedback to an article’s author, or you just might enjoy reading other people’s comments. But did you know that reader comments often contain helpful tips, answers to reader questions in comments, or links to relevant Web resources? Here are a few examples of some of the pearls of wisdom that Sqlmag.com readers have passed along recently in their comments.
From vidma, on Derek Comingore’s “SQL Server 2008: Enter the Data Collector,” June 2008: “I blogged about Management Data Warehouse and Data Collectors, and maybe my post will be also helpful to this article’s readers: www.ssas-info.com/VidasMatelisBlog/55_sql-server-2008-management-data-warehouse.”
From Lee Everest, on Kalen Delaney’s “Knowledge and Wisdom: Honoring Jim Gray,” June 2008: “Nice article. I blogged about Dr. Gray in August 2007 and have a few other links and tidbits of interest. Great visionary for our profession, and will be missed. www.texastoo .com/post/Dr-Jim-Gray—Where-are-you.aspx.” From kgutlich, on Teo Lachev’s “Protect UDM with Dimension Data Security, Part 2,” October 2007: “I’ve tried to use the factless fact table as a security method…. When I insert my MDX expression (almost the same as the one in the example), the syntax is correct but I get an error using the OLAP cube telling me that the EXIST function does not exist while trying to use the security role…. Can anybody help me?” From carleb21, in response to kgutlich: “It looks like a simple typo. Try Exists instead of Exist.”
MySQL vs. SQL Server
Back in April, Brian Moran wrote about the significance of Sun Microsystems’ acquisition of MySQL and its potential effect on SQL Server. Readers chimed in with thoughtful comments about the strengths and weaknesses of MySQL and SQL Server, and Brian responded to update and clarify some of the points in the original article. In this case, the reader comments are almost an article in themselves!
—Anne Grubb, Web site strategic editor,
SQL Server Magazine
