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