ETL/BI Blogger

Renewed as a SQL Server MVP!

This morning, I received a confirmation email that announced me that I was renewed as a MVP. This is the third year in a row that I have this status. But this year is different; I am now a SQL Server MVP. I am very glad of it because it represents better what I am involved in and I think that I can make a great contribution in SQL Server BI community.

Christian

Speaking at Devteach Ottawa

I will have the pleasure to be speaker to the next Devteach that will be held in Ottawa November 2^nd to 4^th. I will do two sessions:

• Data validation strategies with SSIS
• Introduction to Data Quality Services with SSIS

Devteach Ottawa is sponsored by TechDays. In fact, this event is THE Techdays event for Ottawa. Don't miss it!

Christian

I really enjoyed my first SQL Saturday

Yesterday was my first time as a speaker to a SQL Saturday. The event was at Humber College in the Toronto area. 15-20 people attended my two sessions on SSIS and Visual Studio 2010 Database Development Tools. Considering the fact that about 60 people showed up, I can say that the topics l talked about were popular. I enjoyed the fact that this was a whole day on SQL Server only. I assisted some of the other sessions and they were very good. This also a chance to meet valuable people, both speakers and attendees, and learn on SQL Server features.

We'll try to do something similar to this next year in Montreal. I hope we'll have SQL Server Denali RTM at that time!

Christian

Presenting at Toronto’s SQL Saturday 93

I will be presenting at SQL Saturday 93 on September 17^th. This will be my first experience as a speaker at a SQL Saturday and I can't wait to be there. I will present on Visual Studio 2010 database development tools and, of course, talk about forthcoming Juneau. I will do a new presentation called "Data Validation Strategies with SSIS". This session will talk about the various ways to validate data using SSIS.

 

Christian

Presenting at Vermont Code Camp III

I will be presenting at the third edition of Vermont Code Camp. I'll make a session on SQL Server Denali CTP3. It's my third participation at VT Code Camp as a speaker. I always enjoy Burlington's surroundings and it's gonna be a nice driver over there.

SSIS with Matt Mason Sept. 7th

I am glad to announce for that Matt Mason will present on SSIS Design patterns at Montreal SQL user group. I saw a brief content of this session last Spring at Ottawa Code Camp and I can tell it will be a very good presentation. Interested? Just register at http://www.dotnetmontreal.com/events/25114241 . Hope to see you there!

Christian

SSAS STDEV calculation issue in Connect

HI, since I did not solve my issue for the STDEV function error is Analysis Services , I submitted the problem to Connect.Microsoft.com. Please, vote for it because I think this is a bug. But in order to assert it, I want to have the feedback from Microsoft.

 

Thanks,

Christian

SSAS STDDEV function leads to wrong results

Earlier last spring, I created a cube containing some calculated measures that were using STDDEV function. Everything seemed to be fine except when STDDEV was used over similar number series. I sent post on SSAS MSDN forum and did not get any viable solution. Here is the link to my post:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlanalysisservices/thread/e0d7651e-a874-481c-a07c-0cde939ad327

Is the STDDEV built-in function buggy?

Processing Analysis Services 2005 Cube from SSIS 2008

I recently faced a particular problem; one of our server crashed and I had to move our SSAS 2008 cube to a 2005 instance. So, we redid the cube in BIDS 2005, which was easy since the cube is based on a star schema in our SQL Server database. The cube processing is made from a package in SSIS (2008).

Everything worked well when all components were in 2008. But now, with the cube sitting on a 2005 instance, we faced a particular issue: an error occurred when SSIS tried to process the dimensions of the cube. The error claimed that we did not use the right SSAS client when connecting to the cube. Fine, we changed the configuration of the SSAS connection manager to use the 2005 version of the client…only to find out that the 2005 client was not installed on the server. And, surely, we did not wanted to take the risk to install a previous version of the client on the server.

So, the solution I ended out using was to split the processes. My data warehouse would still be processed from my 2008R2 SSIS packages on my 2008R2 server but my cube would be processed from a SSIS 2005 package that sits on a 2005 server. The way I did it is to have an Execute SQL task that would call a job via msdb..sp_start_job on the 2005 server. Now, since msdb..sp_start_job starts jobs and exits, I called instead a stored procedure that run jobs synchronously. The job simply calls the SSIS 2005 package that processes the dimensions and partitions of my Analysis Services 2005 cube.

To sum up, I have been able to process my SSAS 2005 cube from a 2008 SSIS package that sits on a server without SSAS 2005 client installed by having SSIS 2008 firing a job on the 2005 instance. This simple solution saved from having the SSAS 2005 installed onto the 2008R2 Server and potentially messes up with the SSAS 2008 client already installed.

Christian

 

Presenting at Ottawa IT Camp

I'll be presenting in Ottawa IT Camp this Saturday. I will make two sessions:

• SSIS Whats new in SQL Server Denali?: This session will talk about next release (CTP1) of SQL Server Integration Services.
• Deploy your database with VS2010 Database Development Tools: I will talk about database deployment with TFSBuild.

Hope to see you there!

Christian