Continue reading »]]> I’ll be driving up to Ottawa later today to speak at the Ottawa PASS chapter’s user group meeting. Tonight I’ll be talking about Data Quality Services (DQS), with a focus on a couple of demos that show how DQS, MDS, and SSIS can be used together to form an Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solution.

The registration link can be found here. See you there!

Continue reading »]]> TechEd is my favorite Microsoft event – the size of the conference, and the number of sessions you can choose from always amazes me. I’m honored to have been selected to present once again. This year I’ll be doing three sessions:

Enterprise Information Management (EIM): Bringing Together SSIS, DQS, and MDS
DBI310 | Advanced – 300 | Monday, June 11 @ 4:45 PM

Enterprise Information Management (EIM) is an industry term for managing your data for data integration, quality, and governance, and is an important part of the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 release. This session revolves around a demo which brings together our EIM functionality in SQL Server 2012 and which tells our Credible, Consistent Data story. We show you how SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Data Quality Services (DQS), Master Data Services (MDS) and other Microsoft technologies work together to provide a comprehensive EIM solution.

Incremental ETL Using CDC for SQL and Oracle with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) 2012
DBI322 | Advanced – 300 | Tuesday, June 12 @ 10:15 AM

Exploring real-world customer scenarios, we take a look at how the new Change Data Capture (CDC) components for SSIS in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 simplify incremental ETL and Data Warehouse loads. We demo the new functionality in SSIS, and show off how the new tools make it easy to set up and configure CDC against both SQL Server and Oracle sources. We present the different CDC configuration options, and demonstrate design patterns that can be used to overcome common problems you’ll face while doing incremental loading of data. If your ETL solution needs to handle incremental loads from data sources that were designed explicitly to support them, then this is a session you can’t afford to miss.

BI Power Hour
DBI207 | Intermediate – 200 | Tuesday, June 12 @ 5:00 PM

The legacy continues. The Microsoft Business Intelligence team is excited to once again present the BI PowerHour. In this entertaining session, we dazzle you with new demonstrations that expose the lighter side of Business Intelligence exposing the flexibility and power of the Microsoft BI Platform. If you’ve never been to a Power Hour session, you definitely don’t want to miss it. We promise you’ll walk away impressed.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve had a lot of people ask me recently for real-life examples of how customers are using Data Quality Services (DQS). Even though SQL Server 2012 has been out less than a month, we already have a number of case studies published which describe how DQS plays a key role within a customer’s infrastructure. Most of the studies involve end-to-end Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solutions which include SSIS and Master Data Services (MDS) as well.

Here are the five DQS case studies that are currently available on Microsoft.com:

• Areva – Energy Firm Speeds the Delivery of Reliable, Centralized Master Data to Customers
• China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation – Chinese Energy Utility Builds BI Solution to Improve Information Sharing and Efficiency
• Super 8 Hotels Co., Ltd. – Hotel Chain Uses Business Intelligence Tools to Guide Rapid Growth Across China
• Great Western Bank – Fast-Growing Bank Gains Customers and Maximizes Profits with Microsoft BI Tools
• RealtyTrac – Real Estate Website Helps Customers Make Better Decisions with Higher Quality Data

Continue reading »]]> Here are the slides (all 177 of them) for the SSIS Performance Design Patterns talk that I’ve delivered at three different pre-conference events over the past month. Each presentation was slightly different, but the core content remained the same. These events included:

• SQL Saturday #105 | Dublin
• SQL Bits X, where I co-presented with John Welch
• SQL Saturday #111 | Atlanta, where I co-presented with Andy Leonard

The version posted here is from the SQL Bits event.The recording from this event be posted online in the next few weeks – be sure to check the site!

Continue reading »]]> The DQS client will automatically sort the list of Domain Values, which can make adding new values to a big list tricky. Once you enter the new value at the bottom of the list, it gets automatically sorted, and you need to scroll up the list to find it again. However, there is a better way!

At the far end of the toolbar, there is a drop down button which exposes the lesser used commands. One of these is the Show\Hide domain values changes history panel button, which turns out to be incredible useful.

When the panel is enabled, it is displayed at the bottom of the Domain Values page. When a value is added or modified, the change will be displayed in the log window, with a hyperlink to the domain value. Clicking on this link will automatically scroll/focus on the list to the target value.

Continue reading »]]> I’m happy to see that my second SSIS book for the SQL Server 2012 release has been announced! SQL Server 2012 Integration Services Inside Out is published by Microsoft Press (and O’Reilly), and gives you a real insiders view of the product. My co-authors are all members of the SSIS product team, and we’ve really dug deep into the product for some of the chapters you’ll see in this book. It is scheduled to come out this summer (July 2012). I think this book is a good compliment to my other book – SSIS Design Patterns – which takes a more hands-on, solution based approach.

From the O’Reilly site:

Conquer Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Integration Services—from the inside out!

You’re beyond the basics, so dive right in and really put SQL Server Integration Services to work! This supremely organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds. It’s all muscle and no fluff. Discover how the experts perform data integration tasks—and challenge yourself to new levels of mastery.

• Gain in-depth understanding of Integration Service capabilities introduced in SQL Server 2012
• Implement Integration Services best practices and design patterns
• Master the ETL tool for data extraction, transformation, and loading
• Manage performance issues using tuning principles and techniques
• Diagnose problems and apply advanced troubleshooting features

Continue reading »]]> Julie Smith announced that Idera is offering full training scholarships for each of the three Pre-Con training events at SQL Saturday #111 (Atlanta). One of those sessions – A Day of SSIS – is one I’ll be doing along with Andy Leonard. This is a great opportunity for someone who might not have gotten to go otherwise. Check out Julie’s post for details on how you can be selected. 

Continue reading »]]> If you’re looking to get started with Data Quality Services (DQS) and Master Data Services (MDS), there are some fantastic resources available on Technet. The site includes videos and slides for full day training sessions on both products.

Data Quality Services for SQL Server 2012

• Data Quality Basics and Introducing DQS: Video | Slides
• Knowledge Management and Data Cleansing in DQS: Video | Slides
• Data Matching in DQS: Video | Slides
• DQS Integration with SSIS: Data Cleansing using SSIS: Video | Slides
• DQS Integration with MDS: Data Matching using MDS: Video | Slides

Master Data Services for SQL Server 2012

• Master Data Services Overview: Video | Slides
• Managing Data Warehousing Dimensions with MDS, Part 1: Video | Slides
• Managing Data Warehousing Dimensions with MDS, Part 2: Video
• Data Loading via Entity Based Staging (EBS): Video | Slides
• MDS Hierarchies and Collections: Video | Slides
• Business Rules and Workflow in MDS: Video | Slides
• MDS Model Migration and Upgrade: Video | Slides
• Security Features and Guidelines in MDS: Video | Slides
• Eliminate Duplicate Data with the MDS Add-In for Excel: Video | Slides