PASS 2003 Review

Conference Highlights Keynote speakers Gordon Mangione Alan Griver Bill Baker Technical sessions Over 120 sessions across 4 tracks Dev team, MVP’s, SQL Server experts Other benefits Pre-conference seminars Ask the Expert sessions Hands-on labs (RS and Yukon) Solutions Expo

Chapter News PASS membership benefits Education opportunities Networking value Discounts on SQL Server-related tools On-line access to information More support for local chapters Regional seminars and road shows Give-aways (software, books, etc.) Administrative assistance Recorded content from Pacific NW group

PASS 2004 Start planning now! Sep 28 – Oct 1 Orlando, FL Save on registration PASS membership Early-bird registration Group discounts

Yukon Preview

Improvements Everywhere For the DBA Disaster recovery improvements Data partitioning Improved replication Management tools For the developer.NET CLR integration XML technologies T-SQL enhancements SQL Server Broker Notification Services Development tools

Improvements Everywhere For the BI/DW developer Rewritten DTS Rewritten Analysis Services Improved data mining Reporting Services Scalability and performance Development and management tools Its been said… More work on Yukon than all prior versions Major investment in DTS and AS teams Ready to handle 10+ TB databases

DTS Preview Complete redesign and rewrite New development paradigm Develop packages in BI Workbench (VS.NET) Debug packages (interactively!) Deploy packages to Yukon server Configuration files set package properties New DTS Designer paradigm Control flow (tasks, constraints, containers) Data flow (sources, destinations, tasks) Event tasks

Control Flow Tasks All your old favorite tasks plus… File System Task AS Execute DDL Task Data Mining Query task Precedence constraints Mainly the same as before Supports logical “OR”ing as well as “AND”ing Containers Sequence container For Loop container For Each Loop container

Data Flow Sources and destinations OLE DB, flat file, raw file, recordset Tasks Aggregate, character map, conditional split Copy/map, data conversion, data mining (3) Derived column, fuzzy grouping, fuzzy lookup Lookup, merge, merge join, multicast Pivot, sort, union all, unpivot Dimension/partition processing Slowly changing dimension Truly enterprise class features!

DTS Demo

Analysis Services Preview Complete redesign and rewrite Introduces Unified Dimension Model Blurs the line between relational and OLAP Basis for an AS database Traditional benefits of OLAP Query speeds, analytical richness, ease of use Traditional benefits of relational Complex schemas Support for wide set of attributes Low latency data Will drive “sea change” in BI design Features designed around UDM

Data Sources and Views Data sources Provide connections to databases One AS database (UDM) can include many Data source views Create logical model across data sources Can include additional meta-data Logical views based on single or multiple tables Additional columns based on calculations Logical names for physical tables and columns All else based on DSV

Dimensions Attribute based Dimension can include MANY attributes Each can become a “hierarchy” Other hierarchies built based on attributes Provides rich query and filter options Types and properties Still support star, snowflake, parent-child Still support member properties Many more options for dim and level types Translations Can include for dim, hierarchies, attributes Based on underlying columns in DSV

Cube One cube per database!! Can include multiple fact tables Measures put into measure groups Measure groups related to dimensions Support for inferred and many-many relations Calculations based on MDX script Evaluated in procedural order Basically the same properties as today But, cool new wizards to add common ones! Actions Same basic paradigm as today

Cubes Partitions Same basic paradigm as today Includes new “proactive caching” feature Perspectives Create “views” of the cube for analysis Somewhat like virtual cubes today Based on measure, dims, and calculations Translations Ability to provide translations much like dims Based on underlying columns in DSV

Cubes KPI’s New feature to analyze trends Based on measure or calculated member Provides visualization on change and trend Will require new/updated front-end tools True enterprise-class BI features!

AS Demo