A journey through database heaven & hell (and other stuff)
Archive for the ‘Data Warehousing’ Category.
Live from the conference call
Just 20 months after the release of SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 (“Gemini”/”Kilimanjaro”) is today released to manufacturing…
The conference call featured Ted Kummert and Tom Casey of Microsoft.
Parallel Data Warehouse (project “Madison”) will be released later in the year.
The MSDEV people are about to launch a series of training courses for Master Data Services that covers early concepts, setup, model building, configuration, security model setup and the object model. This should be a great series and promises to be a solid introduction to the product.
Well, I finally got around to taking a look at R2 and specifically Master Data Services (due mostly to some strange decisions on my current data migration project).
First impressions – I actually quite like it. I can see that it is going to require some deep late-night learning to completely get my head around it all but it’s certainly not what I would call a Version 1 product (actually given that it’s born out of Stratature +EDM it’s more like version 4/5) . The new web based UI is pretty clunky though and for sure left me a little frustrated at times. However mosts of my other issues primarily centred around “de-nannying” Windows Server 2008 R2… all I can say (from a guy who likes to be fairly agile) is AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!
So here was the set up.
Virtual Server
SQL Server
Some things I needed to do for later on but may as well have done here
After the SQL Install, you need to run the MDS install from the SQL Install Media.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will point you to the msdn installation area and two excellent posts to get installed, web app configured (this took me a couple of attempts until I found Sutha’s article) and run in some test data to see how it works.
Baby Steps (Nick Barclay’s 7 step tutorials)
And the result was this
first hierarchy
One last useful link – when you are importing data, there are a set of error codes applied to the datasets (nice touch). The problem is that they are not documented anywhere (crap touch…attention to detail!!). The result, I spent a couple of hours looking for ERR210000 and what I might have done wrong only to find from Kirk’s helpful list that ERR210000 means “all is well” (great “ERR” can now mean “OK”)
Have a play…
It’s available today for Technet & MSDN subscribers…
SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next generation of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform, planned for release in the first half of calendar year 2010. MSDN and TechNet Subscribers can download the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP today. Non-subscribers will be able to download the November CTP later this month. The R2 release brings significant new capabilities and enhancements that can help your business keep pace with today’s growing and changing data management needs. Increase productivity and reduce data management costs by taking advantage of an even more scalable platform with comprehensive database and application management tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 helps users to build rich analysis and reports and helps organizations improve the quality of their data. Find out more, download the Community Technology Preview pre-release and let us know what you think. Also, join the SQL Server communities around the world and the SQL Server development team in the conversation.
Here’s a link to a useful article by Kristen Hodges about using the new 2008 MERGE SQL construct to carry out Type 1 & Type 2 Dimension updates
Based on our experience, this is certainly worth a look over the old SCD component – we have seen some major performance improvements using MERGE over the SCD components (and other workarounds that we had previously used).
Having just been through a high-level pricing exercise in terms of putting some outline prices together for our new BI platform, this article by Jason Morales on PerformancePoint Server pricing caught my eye.
There are three license types for PerformancePoint:
- Server ($20K)
- Client Access License, or CAL ($195/user)
** This is a Server/CAL license model; there are not licenses for Processors or unlimited use
- External Connector** ($30K)
** The External Connector is an optional license for external use of PerformancePoint by non-employees
Discounted rates for PerformancePoint will apply based on Purchase Agreement types (i.e. Enterprise, Select, Open, Campus Agreements, etc.)
And there it is, on t’internet for all too see, the basic, no frills price list for deploying PPS. All you have to do is to make some assumptions about the hardware architecture from a sizing exercise and away you go… you have your numbers for a high level concept paper at any rate. So why oh why is it so difficult to get these prices from other BI vendors(Oracle, Cognos, Business Objects, SAP, MicroStrategy – yes, you guys over there…)? As Jason points out (and I can confirm from my own recent experience)
Historically, BI Vendors have not published pricing. As a result, these vendors will often modify their price quotes on a customer-by-customer basis.
We had just such an experience recently with a BI vendor who shall remain nameless for the moment (no point in upsetting people as this is not what the article/rant is about). It took literally weeks to get to what I would call a simple, straightforward price list. And this is a BI vendor which my company has a global purchasing agreement with! It took around 2 weeks of that time to get confirmation of our current licensing arrangements (and that involved me having to fax a copy of an invoice to our account manager as proof of purchase!!!)
So, if any BI vendors out there are listening, let’s have more transparency on pricing guys. For a good many organisations, if the process of getting indicative prices turns in to a teeth pulling exercise, it tends to put us off. If your tools really are that much better than the competition, you should not be concerned that your prices reflect that superiority yes?
It’s almost like you are saying “If you have to ask how much this costs, you can’t afford it” – and hey…remember that line from Pretty Woman… and remember what happened… I’ll leave you with that thought!!
Hey… on a lighter note, someone bet me I couldn’t get a reference to the film Pretty Woman in to a blog about Business Intelligence… I just won $25….
I'm a Business Intelligence Architect/Developer. I spend my working life moving data to and from SQL Server, Analysis Services, Sharepoint and the rest of the Microsoft Office / BI stack & thought I'd share some stuff with others who may or may not be interested...
