Did you know? SQL Server 2008 SSRS New Data Visualizations

The new Gauge data region is most often used to provide a high-level summary of your data by highlighting key performance indicator (KPI) values. The gauge uses a pointer to show a single value. You can add a range to highlight a subset of values on your scale and control the size and positioning of the scale on the gauge to create different visual effects.

 

The new Chart data region supports a richer set of data visualization features. The new chart types include bar/column cylinder, pyramid, funnel, polar, radar, stock, candlestick, range column, range bar, smooth area, smooth line, stepped line, and box plot chart types. There is also built-in support for Pareto and Histogram charts.

 

There are many more enhancements that have been made to the charting functionality, so check out the BOL link below and read all about them along with other new features.

Check out a screencast about the new Data Visualizations in SQL Server 2008 here.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘What’s New in Report Authoring’.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 SSRS New Data Visualizations from Dan English on Vimeo.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Dimension Designer Enhancements

SQL Server 2008 includes Dimension Designer Enhancements, new attribute relationships designer, and additional Best Practice Alerts:)

The Dimension Wizard within BIDS 2008 (VS 2008) for Analysis Service Projects has been simplified and introduces a new attribute relationship designer.

The wizard has reduced the number of screens and includes an auto-detection for parent-child hierarchies.

There have also been modifications to the Best Practice Alerts and there are now 57 alerts integrated into the designer along with a new option to add comments to them and disable them if desired.

Check out a screencast about the Dimension Designer Enhancements in SQL Server 2008 here.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Dimension Designer (Analysis Services – Multidimensional Data) ’.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Dimension Designer Enhancements from Dan English on Vimeo.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Backup Compression

SQL Server 2008 includes database Backup Compression:

Keeping disk-based backups online is expensive and time-consuming. With SQL Server 2008 backup compression, less storage is required to keep backups online, and backups run significantly faster since less disk I/O is required.

By default, backup compression significantly increases CPU usage, which can adversely impact concurrent operations. You can now create low-priority compressed backups in a session whose CPU usage is limited by Resource Governor.

SQL Server 2008 Developer and Enterprise Editions and later supports compressing backups, and every edition of SQL Server 2008 or later can restore a compressed backup.  

· Check out a screencast about the new Backup Compression feature in SQL Server 2008 here.

· Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Backup Compression (SQL Server)’.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Backup Compression from Dan English on Vimeo.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Auditing

SQL Server 2008 includes Auditing (server and database):

SQL Server 2008 now enables you to configure server and database level audit specifications.  These specifications include server operations such as management changes and database actions such as data manipulation language (DML) and data definition language (DDL) operations.  The output of the audits can be sent to a file, Windows Security event log, or the Windows Application event log.

· Check out a screencast about the new Audit feature in SQL Server 2008 here.

· Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Understanding SQL Server Audit’.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Auditing from Dan English on Vimeo.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes GROUPING SETS

SQL Server 2008 includes GROUPING SETS:

Grouping Sets is an extension to the GROUP BY clause that lets users define multiple groupings in the same query. Grouping Sets produces a single result set that is equivalent to a UNION ALL of differently grouped rows, making aggregation querying and reporting easier and faster.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘GROUPING SETS’.

Check out a screencast about the new GROUPING SETS feature in SQL Server 2008 here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes GROUPING SETS from Dan English on Vimeo.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Cache Transform screencast

SQL Server 2008 includes Cache Transform:

The Cache Transform transformation writes data from a connected data source in the data flow to a Cache connection manager.  The cache can be populated from text files, XML files, Excel files, etc.; you are not limited to only populating the cache from an OLE DB source.  The Lookup transformation in a package performs lookups on the data using the Cache connection manager.

You can configure the Cache connection manager to save the data to a cache file (.caw).  The cache file can be populated once and reused throughout the ETL process within multiple Lookup transformations for performing surrogate key lookups and populating the data warehouse.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Cache Transform’.

Check out a screencast about the new cache transform transformation feature in SQL Server 2008  here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Cache Transform from Dan English on Vimeo.

If you are interested in additional information in regards to this topic check out these other blog postings and sites: 

• http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/stacia/2007/10/17/SQLServer2008LookupTransformationAndCaching.aspx
• http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2007/11/16/Katmai_3A00_-SSIS_3A00_-Lookup-component-gets-a-makeover.aspx

You can also check out a video on YouTube done by Jamie Thomson in regards to this new transformation here.  The last time I viewed it there wasn’t any audio, just video.

You can download the SSIS samples from CodePlex and take a look at a sample utilizing the cache transform here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Data Profiling Task screencast

SQL Server 2008 includes Data Profiling Task:

The Data Profiling task is a new task in the Integration Services toolbox. You can use this task inside an Integration Services package to profile data that is stored in SQL Server. The information provided by the profile helps you identify potential problems with data quality. The Data Profiling task provides profiles that help identify data quality problems within individual columns and with column relationships:

Profiles that help identify problems within individual columns

· The distribution of lengths in the column values.

· The percentage of null values.

· The distribution of values in the column.

· Column statistics for numeric columns.

· Regular expressions that match string columns.

Profiles that help identify problems with column relationships

· Candidate key columns.

· Functional dependencies between columns.

· The inclusion of the set of values in one column in the set of values in another column.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Data Profiling Task’.

Check out a screencast about the new data profiling task feature in SQL Server 2008  here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Data Profiling Task from Dan English on Vimeo.

If you are interested in additional information in regards to this topic check out these other blog postings:

http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/stacia/2007/11/27/SQLServer2008DataProfilingTaskTheQuickVersion.aspx

OR

SSIS: Data Profiling Task: Part 1 – Introduction
Data Profiling Task: Part 2 – Column Length Distribution
Data Profiling Task: Part 3 – Column Null Ratio
Data Profiling Task: Part 4 – Column Pattern
Data Profiling Task: Part 5 – Column Statistics

Data Profiling Task: Part 6 – Column Value Distribution
Data Profiling Task: Part 7 – Functional Dependency
Data Profiling Task: Part 8 – Candidate Key
Data Profiling Task: Part 9 – Value Inclusion

SSIS: Data Profiling Task: Part 10 – Parsing the output

and if you want to know how to dynamically profile tables check out this blog posting which includes the code here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Data Profiling Task from Dan English on Vimeo.

If you are interested in additional information in regards to this topic check out these other blog postings:

http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/stacia/2007/11/27/SQLServer2008DataProfilingTaskTheQuickVersion.aspx

OR

SSIS: Data Profiling Task: Part 1 – Introduction
Data Profiling Task: Part 2 – Column Length Distribution
Data Profiling Task: Part 3 – Column Null Ratio
Data Profiling Task: Part 4 – Column Pattern
Data Profiling Task: Part 5 – Column Statistics

Data Profiling Task: Part 6 – Column Value Distribution
Data Profiling Task: Part 7 – Functional Dependency
Data Profiling Task: Part 8 – Candidate Key
Data Profiling Task: Part 9 – Value Inclusion

SSIS: Data Profiling Task: Part 10 – Parsing the output

and if you want to know how to dynamically profile tables check out this blog posting which includes the code here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Intellisense screencast

A new thing we are trying internally at work is sending out weekly ‘Did you know?’ (DYN) emails about new features that are included in SQL Server 2008.  We are trying to spread awareness and excitement about the new version of SQL Server 2008.  The emails include information about a new feature, links to the topic in BOL, a internal discuss in regards to the topic, and SQL Server 2008 information (main page site, trial download site, learning portal, webcasts, and virtual labs).  The other item that we are including is a screencast of the new feature.  So far I have done two of the DYN topics and I thought I would start sharing them with the rest of the community.  Here is the screencast for Intellisense and I will post the other screencast on Data Profiling task next.

SQL Server 2008 includes T-SQL IntelliSense:
Transact-SQL IntelliSense provides intelligent aids for Transact SQL scripting that make language references easily accessible for database developers. When coding, you do not need to leave the Database Query Editor to perform searches on T-SQL language elements or your database metadata.  You can keep your context, find the information you need, insert T-SQL language elements directly into your code, and even have IntelliSense complete your typing for you. This can speed up software development by reducing the amount of keyboard input required and minimize references to external documentation.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Using Intellisense’.

Check out a screencast about the new intellisense feature in SQL Server 2008 here.  

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Intellisense from Dan English on Vimeo.