The trouble with data…

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

• 2 x Processors (2.33ghz)
• 4GB RAM
• 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 (Enterprise)

SQL Server

• 2008 R2 Enterprise CTP2 (Eval)

Some things I needed to do for later on but may as well have done here

• Upped the server from default to run IIS, Web Services etc
• Ensured .Net 3.5 sp1 was on board

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.

Installation

Web App Config

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…

On Friday I spent the day with Lawyers, Accountants and a few programmers/developers, discussing data migration and reporting requirements for a new claims handling system.

It reminded me that the change of direction that I decided upon (from Accounting to Business Intelligence) a few years ago was essentially a good move. Actually, this shouldn’t be a bad reflection on the Accounting company of the day, just that it served to remind me that BI offers so much more variation to me than ensuring that the books balance

The meeting also reminded me of “The Steve Rule” first seen a while back at the Daily WTF. This rule allows for the fact that in a random sample of programmers, there will be more named Steve then there will be females… Well, yesterday’s room did contain about five Steve’s and only three women so maybe there is some truth in it after all.

Made me smile…. well something’s got to at the moment…

We took Charlie to a theme park for her first rollercoaster ride….

A cool little utility for Firefox fans who like YouTube 

DownloadHelper :: Firefox Add-ons

It’s hard to believe, but it’s a whole year since my first blog post. Alot has happened since then:

• Built a data warehouse
• Moved house even though I said “never again” the last time
• Moved jobs after 7 years at the Bank
• SP2 for SQL 2005 released (twice!)
• SQL 2008 CTP began 
• PerformancePoint almost released

And where did the time go…. I can’t quite believe that Charlotte starts school in a month!! Does time just pass more quickly the older you get ? 

Hi, I am testing some new blog posting software called Windows Live Writer – It seems really easy to use so I this all works then I will be using this from now on as I find Wordpress post authoring interface a bit cludgy and prone to “losing” my posts without saving them to draft or publishing them.

This can be massively annoying when you are nearing the end  of a long post. So here’s a test of inserting a picture and trying to wrap my text around it. 

Hmmmm – didn’t come out quite as i figured so maybe I’ll have to read up on that one…

It’s got a neat UI, with spell-checker, text formatting etc.

Try it out, it supports the following blogging software

and a good few others… it can be downloaded from here and there is a blog all about it here.

I must admit – i think I am already a convert.