SharePoint Saturday – Boston 2014

I had the pleasure to attend the SharePoint Saturday (SPS) conference on April 12th at the Microsoft Office in Cambridge, Boston MA. I am truly interested and passionate about MS SQL Server developer products (SSDT, SSIS, SSAS, SSRS); However, I do support SharePoint at my day job. This was a great opportunity to learn more about how to configure SQL Server for SharePoint. There were a handful of sessions on MS BI products deployed in a SharePoint environment. Here is a list of sessions that I attended and really liked.…

Executing Powershell From Cmd Line

In the last article, we verified that Windows PowerShell was installed on my laptop and determined the version of the scripting engine. This tallk will be center around how to execute scripts from the command line. For a simple test case, I created a C:\TEMP directory. Inside that directory is a script named “LIST-ROOT.PS1” that will change the directory to the root node on the C drive. After this action, the contents of the root directory is listed for review.

Lets try executing the script from a command line.…

Installing Windows PowerShell

PowerShell comes installed as part of the operating system in Windows 7. I checked my system which is a base install of Windows 7 SP1. The ISE or integrated scripting envrionment is the place to code, debug and launch scripts. To open the development environment, type powershell_ise at the run or command prompt to launch the application. At this point, you have to decide if you can live with the current version or install the new version. There are two commands that can be used to find the version. The…

2014 Goal Statement

I just finished blog entry two hundred seventy in December 2013. It is quite an accomplishment since it takes one or two hours to research and design to compose an good article. I figured it was time to reset my goals for the upcoming year. Here is what I am planning for this year. 1 – Have answered a total of 400 questions at Stack Overflow. My total right now is 188 answers. That means I need to respond 212 times in the next year. 2 – Have completed a…

Pragmatic Works – Performance Tuning

I had the opportunity last week to attend the SQL Server Performance Tuning Workshop by Pragmatic Works Learning Center. I definitely recommend this workshop. This is the second class I have taken at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center located in Cambridge, MA. It is conveniently located right off the Kendall station stop on the Massachusetts Transit Bay Authority (MBTA) Red Line. The main instructor for the class was Bradley Ball aka SQLBalls. He was a very likable speaker possessing good presentation skills as well as a wealth…

TSQL Programming with SSMS

Most of the articles that I presented so far for database development have been centered around the exact Microsoft T-SQL syntax to perform a certain operation. At the University of Rhode Island, I learnt how to program in Pascal before typing in my first ANSI SQL statement. In short, I will always be some type of developer in my heart. However, many people do not come from a computer science and math background. The SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has menus and dialog boxes to achieve many of the same…

Using Password Safe

One of the daily tasks of a database administrator is the granting and the maintaining of access to the fleet of databases under your charge. It is important to to keep track of all the system administrator accounts and passwords as well as any application ones requested by developers or end users. Another important aspect of security is making sure that passwords are strong enough to meet your companies audit requirements. Why even use a password if it can be easily hacked? Today, I want to go review how the…

Check Database Integrity Task

Today, I will be continuing the series of articles on the control flow tasks available in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to perform Database Administration (DBA) tasks. We will be designing a SSIS package that checks the database integrity of all the user databases. I am going to start up SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) which leverages the Visual Studio 2010 shell. This development environment replace the older Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) which was released with SQL Server 2005. I will create a project named “check-database-integrity” under the “c:\ssis-depot\”…

Maintenance & History Cleanup Tasks

Today, I will be continuing the series of articles on the control flow tasks available in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to perform Database Administration (DBA) tasks. We will be designing a SSIS package that executes a data retention policy in regards to backup files and [msdb] history records. One of the most important job functions of a DBA is to have a recent backup chain in which a point in time restore can be performed. A backup chain consists of the most recent FULL backup, differential (DIFF) backup, and…

Backup Database Task – Part 3

Tonight, I will be continuing the series of articles on the control flow tasks available in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to perform Database Administration (DBA) tasks. We will be designing a SSIS package that executes a differential backup on all user databases and save the results to a directory of my choosing. One of the most important job functions of a DBA is to have a recent backup chain in which a point in time restore can be performed. A backup chain consists of the most recent FULL backup,…