Hands-on training event in Honolulu: SQL Server Reporting Services 2012

This hands-on course will provide you with the ability to create cutting edge reports using Microsoft's latest reporting services product, SQL Server 2012.

The course is offered by the Pacific Center for Advanced Technology Training(PACTT): http://pcatt.hawaii.edu/home

Report writing is one of the most important IT related jobs in an enterprise. This course is for you if you would like to master report writing/authoring using SQL Server Reporting Services. The course begins with a presentation of essential technical background, after which you will work through guided hands-on exercises.
At the end of the course you will have gained:

• A solid understanding of how to interact with SQL Servers
• Knowledge and experience installing and configuring reporting Services
• A working knowledge of using Report Builder to author reports and deploy them to report server
• A working knowledge of Report Manager's ability to carry out administrative tasks related to all aspects of reports; creating shared data sources, folder and folder hierarchies on the report server, and report models; managing security and subscriptions; and configuring data driven subscriptions
• An understanding of how to embed report viewer controls in windows and web projects.

Venue: Honolulu Community College Honolulu Community College
874 Dillingham Blvd Honolulu, HI 96817-4598
Phone: (808) 845-9211
Official Website: honolulu.hawaii.edu/

Section 1 - Mar 22 - Apr  28, 2016; TTh; 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm; 12 mtgs

I will be using my latest book on SQL Server Reporting Services for this course:

More here:http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2014/11/things-you-learrn-hands-on-in-my-book.html

Things you can you learn about Database and Analytics at Visual Studio Live!

If you do manage to attend you can get some new information and brush up on some old stuff. It should be interesting to track the developments.

These are the session details in the Database and Analytics area.

SQL Server of course is center stage. Topics under SQL Server 2014 covers the following:

• SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)
• Reporting Services for Developers
• Memory-Optimized Tables and Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2014
• Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Topics
TH03 Implementing Data Warehouse Patterns - Attendees Choose
10/01/2015   8:00am - 9:15am
You will learn:
•Techniques for Populating Fact Tables and Dimension tables using T-SQL MERGE statements
•Special considerations for managing Type 2 Slowly Changing dimensions
•Tips for implementing many of the patterns found in the Kimball methodology
TH07: Power BI 2.0: Analytics in the Cloud and Excel
10/01/2015   9:30am - 10:45am
Get to speed quickly on what Power BI has done since version 1 and what's new in Version
Try to read up on my posts in blogs and you might have already learnt a lot!

TH11: Busy Develoepr's Guide to NoSQL
10/01/2015   11:00am - 12:15pm
You will learn:
•About NoSQLs
•What NoSQLs offer that the RDBMS don't
•When and how (and when not) to use them

TH15  Big Data and Hadoop with Azure HDInsight
10/01/2015   1:30pm - 2:45pm
 Learn what Hadoop is, how it works, what to do to get it running on the Azure cloud and how to integrate it.
Learn how to integrate it with SQL Server BI, Excel and third party tools

TH19  Predictive Analytics and Azure Machine Learning
10/01/2015   3:00pm - 4:15pm
You will learn:
•Learn the fundamentals of predictive analytics, including which algorithms work best for specific scenarios
•Learn how to build Azure Machine Learning experiments and models
•Get exposed to the R programming language and see how to integrate R code into Azure ML experiments

W19  SQL Server Reporting Services - Attendees Choose Topics
[This presentation takes some of the more complicated topics and offers them as choices that attendees can pick for the session.]
You will learn:
•About advanced SSRS features "in action", as implemented in actual SSRS client applications
•The implementation of mass-automated report delivery of data driven subscriptions in SSRS (and also see .NET code used in SSIS scripts for customized delivery of reports)
•A general understanding of Microsoft's current and future offerings for SSRS in the Cloud

W15  Transact-SQL for Application Developers - Attendees Choose Topics
09/30/2015 3:00pm - 4:15pm
[Attendees choose from 25 possible topics - plus you'll walk away with all 25 code samples.]
You will learn:
•About the new language enhancements in SQL 2012
•Where sub-queries are necessary
•To gain some appreciation of performance optimization

W11  Real World SQL Server Data Tools
09/30/2015   1:30pm - 2:45pm
You will learn:
•Techniques for importing existing legacy SQL Server schemas with old, dead code. Basically, how do you take the kind of messy, not-well-maintained databases that I see at customer sites and bring it into SSDT without losing your sanity and giving up?
•About real enterprise application databases that often have references across database boundaries, and how to identify and variable-ize these database objects and deal with cross-database and cross-SSDT project references.
•How to handle incremental automated deployment scenarios from the command line or TFS Build and manage 'lookup' data as part of these deployment scenarios.

M01  Workshop: Big Data, Analytics and NoSQL: Everything You Wanted to Learn But Were Afraid to Ask
09/28/2015  9:00am - 6:00pm
"Who has time to learn about Big Data, Analytics and NoSQL? "
Perhaps you can learn a little bit of all of the above and more  attending this workshop

Read more here: https://vslive.com/Events/New-York-2015/Tracks/Database-and-Analytics.aspx

Download SQL Server CTP 2.3 and check out enhancements

SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 is available since September 2, 2015. Several features have been enhanced. Looks like integration of R Language with SQL Server 2016 is built-in.

The following are the stated enhancements in this preview:

• Row Level Security support for in-memory OLTP tables
• A core engine scalability improvement, dynamically partitioning thread safe memory objects by NUMA or CPU, which enables higher scalability
• In-memory data warehouse (column store) performance optimizations
• Many-to-many derived hierarchies in Master Data Services
• Several performance improvements to SQL Server Analysis Services, including DAX query performance
• Enhancements to Reporting Services, including an updated Report Builder with a modern theme and report rendering for modern browsers

These are additional enhancements besides the above:
Improvements to the SQL Server Integration Service, Query Execution, and DBCC CHECKDB.

Technical Datasheet is  here (download PDF).

Download the evaluation edition here.

Standard setting Microsoft Power BI enters GA

PowerBI 2.0 was released recently (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/07/24/power-bi-is-generally-available-today.aspx).  According to the link there appears to be two items, Power BI Service and Power BI Desktop. Power BI Visualization framework and its library will be available on GitHub as well.

Review articles on\using previous version here:

Power BI Unchained
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/power-bi-unchained.html
Spin out a cutting edge report with Power BI
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/spin-out-cutting-edge-report-with-power.html
Visualizing data on SAP's SQL Anywhere
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/powerbi-preview-reporting-from-sql_13.html
Excel data visualization with Power BI
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/02/powerbi-preview-reports-using-data-on.html

Power BI Service: Cloud Hosted Bi and Analytics
Power BI Service download is from this link.
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/?WT.mc_id=Blog_GA_James

I used Sign-in on the above linked page with my personal live.com acccount. It appears you cannot use just your Microsoft account (that anybody can get for free) but the Office 365 or enterprise account.

PowerBI_01

However this did not work for me. I am trying to resolve this issue with Microsoft.
Well, the mantra, 'five seconds to sign up, five minutes to WOW' did not work for me. I shall WOW later.

Installing the Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop can be downloaded from here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/desktop

Install double clicking the Windows Installer Package PBIDesktop_x64 (55.6MB).

PBIDesk02.png
Agree to licensing terms. Accept default location. After one or more screens page with Install button will be displayed. Click Install. User Control Access window is displayed. Click OK. Progress page is displayed.

PowerBI Desktop is installed quite rapidly.

PBIDesk06.png

A new desktop icon replacing the one from the preview version is created.

Launching the application displays the following window.


PBIDesk07.png

 

Dismiss the start up screen and you will see the Power BI Desktop with the 'ribbon'.

PBIDesk08.png

Happy Visualizing Data!

How does this stack up against Tableau and Qlik?

Review all the data sources from which you can get data for visualization here.


 

Packt celebrates its 2000th book

ALOHA

PACKT has published so far, 5 of my books (0.25% of Packt books). Actually I am one of the early non-open source authors writing on Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services 2005. Packt has covered a wide area of software, both Open Source and proprietary and PACKT champions the Open Source movement.

Here are my books:

https://www.packtpub.com/authors/profiles/jayaram-krishnaswamy

To mark this important event in its publishing history, PACKT isoffering a very good deal beginning 18th-Mar-2014 and continuing up until 26th-Mar-2014. Following are the benefits readers can avail during this period.

·         Unlimited purchases during the offer period

·         Offer is automatically applied at checkout

Packt books are known for their focus and technical excellence.

Perhaps it will do good for yo to check out the offerings yourself. Kindly follow this link to take full advantage of this offer:

http://bit.ly/1j26nPN

If you want to take a look at my books and parts of its contents there is no better way than following these links.

http://hodentek.blogspot.com

http://hodentekMSSS.blogspot.com - 100% SQL Server

http://hodentekHelp.blogspot.com - free help Q&A type

Also Packt article archives have 100's or more of my articles on database and web related topics.

Mahalo

Jay

It was a very good year - 2013

The best thing that happened in 2013 was the miraculous recovery of our dog Oliver (Shar Pei, Shih Tzu mix with a black elongated tongue) from breathing problems which was troubling him since the day he was born. He recovered and is now enjoying the sunshine and the breeze in Honolulu.

 

All my blogs, four of them had increased readership to something like over a few hundred page views a day. I have not had the time to post to two of them which I hope to improve in 2014.

Hodentek is generic and HodentekMSSS  is 100% SQL Server

The book I had started writing in December 2012 got finished in the middle of 2013. This was the second edition, or the second avatar of my first book on SQL Server Reporting Services published in 2008. I managed to pack-in the SharePoint services providing Reporting Services 2012 as a service. This really gave completeness and justified the writing. Microsoft is relentless in its releases and I am not sure how many have adopted SQL Server 2012 (already SQL Server 2014 is in CTP2) and I am sure quite many are still on 2000 and 2005.

Honolulu is a haven for tourists and the scantily clad crowd but can get boring if you have to live. I was getting to the stage when I wanted to do something more engaging. In November 2013, Pacific Center for Advanced Technical Training provided me the opportunity to teach a non-credit introductory course on Structured Query Language. Some five professionals signed up and the course went very well to my satisfaction. I will be offering this course and one on SQL Server Reporting Services again in early 2014.

Finally the to do list for 2014:

• Keep up the long walks, Yoga and the Surya Namaskaras
• Improve my posts
• Work on my website
• Teach the course and add other courses
• Travel

 

These may just be the types of articles you are looking for

There are some 50 articles covering most areas of contemporary database/web related technologies.

SQL Server 2008, MySQL, Oracle, Analysis Services, Twitter, Microsoft Lightswitch, SSIS, SSRS, Linked Servers, Enterprise DB, SQL Anywhere 10, Data Transfer Access to SQL Server, LinqDataSource, XAML. XBAP, Data Migration, jquery in Dojo, PocketPC, and many more...

Review the following link: Articles on Packt
 

Are you serious about SQL Server 2012?

If the answer is yes, I recommed that you download immediately the SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit. This can be installed from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27721



Before you install the KIT you need to install the Web Platform Installer 4.0. You can get it from the same link. Read the previous post here for installing Web PI 4.0: http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2012/12/you-can-get-lots-of-stuff-from-web.html

Note that the KIT's executable may not necessariloy show up in WEB PI4.0!!

When you run the Kit related exe (http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/9/D098DCF2-1888-4624-920B-B2DE71B2728F/SQL2012DevTrainingKit.WebInstaller.exe) file you will download the kit.

On this computer it was installed in the default folder "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\WebPlatformInstaller.exe". Note that you have to allow Activex on your IE and you may get this warning, better pay attention to it and enable it.

When you run this program you will find the default.htm, the starting point of your journey.
C:\SQL2012UpdateForDevsTrainingKit\Default.htm

Default.htm opens out like this. You can learn a lot, not just DBA, but also development and of course BI.

Good luck.

Aloha from Honolulu

Microsoft Web Camps-Bengaluru Nov 3_2011

I managed to attend this event in Bengaluru and it was quite interesting. The Microsoft staff who made the presentations did quite a good job. The presentations were around HTML5 and Web Matrix. Deploying a web matrix application to Windows Azure was presented quite effectively. However I am not sure how many in the audience worked with Windows Azure. Here are some msdn blogs of those who presented:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saranyas/archive/2011/10/12/deploying-a-webmatrix-application-to-windows-azure-part-1-using-command-line.aspx

http://geekswithblogs.net/ranganh/Default.aspx

I also took the opportunity to introduce myself briefly. I wanted to raffle one copy each (eBook version) to the audience but this practice does not appear common. In any case I spoke for a few minutes and explained that the audience could participate in a raffle.

Here is how you can enter the raffle:

Send me an email here (mysorian@gmail.com). In the subject line write one of the following:
SSIS
SSRS
SQLAzure
Lightswitch

If you want to check out the books you may follow the links:

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Business Application Development



Microsoft SQL Azure Enterprise Application Development




Learning SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services



Beginners Guide to SQL Server Integration Services Using Visual Studio 2005









Apart from the above, if you are interested you can buy the books at deep discounts. I believe there is a deadline.Use the following:
Discount Codes:
      Print book : qdecpri
      E Book : qdecebk
The Packt web site is here:
http://www.packtpub.com/

That's all, thanks.

Now you have SQL Azure Reporting Services in the Cloud

At the PDC on October 28th Microsoft announced two new features for SQL Azure Reporting CTP and SQL Azure Data Sync CTP2.
You can embed cloud based reports using SQL Azure Data. You use the familiar SSRS to author reports and use it on-site or, up on the cloud (you can have your cake and eat it too!).
SQL Azure Sync CTP2 enables synchronization between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure. Now you have it both ways.
If you are new to SSRS I strongly recommend my book,
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/03/finally-book-is-published.html
If you are new to SQL Azure you can order my book from here,
https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-sql-azure-enterprise-application-development/book
Do you want to have your own free copy? Follow this link here:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2011/01/do-you-want-free-copies-of-my-latest.html

Authoring a SQL Server report using the twitter API

Twitter is the 'What are you doing (now)?' social messaging,  fastest growing phenomena on the Internet. Members who register with 'Twitter' publish brief messages in text which other members who have agreed to follow can read these messages. Media has jumped on this idea to send out brief messages which will probably appear in extended form later. They (twitter) are trying to monetize the service.

My new article captures the information from one of its API and formats that captured information and turns it into a SQL Server Report using the Report Builder. In this article it is a two step process but it can be bundled into a single applicaiton. You may access the following article on SSWUG.org website.

Tweets with Reporting Services

Become a member of twitter and follow me to get news of my latest articles.
http://twitter.com/subbagiri

It is subscription based site but you can sign up for free as a guest to read the article. Make sure you rate it.

Thanks

* Get two free chapters of my book 'Learn SQL Server Reporting Services 2008' from the pubisher's web site.

ActiveX Script Task to access a Report on a Report Server

You want to create a package to display a report on your report server in SQL Server 2008.

You may want to read this note in my other blog.

http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2008/05/activex-script-task-to-access-report-on.html

My articles on Microsoft Reporting Services

Review of these articles may help in understanding Microsoft SSRS (Vs 2003 & VS 2005; SQL 2000 and SQL 2005) in a reasonable amount of time.

On Importing an Access Parametric Report into SQL 2000 Reporting Services

ASP.NET and SQL 2000 Reporting Services

SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services: Creating a report from scratch

Creating a Chart with SQL 2000 Reporting Services

Building a Multi-table Report with SQL 2005 Reporting Services

Generating and Hosting a SQL Server Reporting Services Report Using SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence Development Studio

This reader liked the article and he was kind enough to communicate to me:(name is masked)

Feedback sent from IP: 193.188.161.31
Referring URL: http://aspalliance.com/819Thankyou for providing such beautifully documented/illustrated mini tutorial on Reporting Services. Had purchased a book to learn RSS, but your tutorial although short was very precise and you spoke to the point. I really liked your method of exposing the basic intricacies in the Reporting Server. I now find it more easy to approach the Reporting Server.Thankyou once again for your efforts.Best Regards,XXXXXXX
"