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May 2008 - Posts

• SSIS: What does DTSER_SUCCESS (0) mean?

  Whenever you run a SSIS package from the command-line you will see some output that looks similar to the following in your console window: Or preferably you'll get this: Have you ever wondered what that phrase "DTSER_SUCCESS (0)" or "DTSER_FAILURE (1)" Read More... Posted 25 May 2008 21:03 by jamie.thomson | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: New blogger from the SSIS team

  Quick note. Doug Laudenschlager (I've checked and rechecked the spelling - I think that's right :) from the SSIS team has begun a SSIS related blog at Dougbert.com ( RSS feed ). Doug is the technical writer on the team which means that he writes all the Read More... Posted 24 May 2008 09:05 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server, SSIS, Microsoft

• Fuzzyness

  SQL Server 2008 is introducing some interesting querying and storage enhancements such as the introduction of spatial data and the FILESTREAM attribute on VARBINARY(MAX) columns and my thoughts have recently turned to what querying enhancements we are Read More... Posted 21 May 2008 07:57 by jamie.thomson | 6 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, SSIS, Microsoft, sqL server 2008, fuzzy, fuzzy logic

• SSIS Nugget: Ensure your root folder is valid

  In the past I have advocated (and still do advocate) the use of a user variable in SSIS packages to store the path to a folder on the hard drive; I always use a variable called @[User::RootFolder] for this. Having this path available within a package Read More... Posted 19 May 2008 11:57 by jamie.thomson | 3 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, SSIS, Microsoft, Expressions, template, Nugget

• WinFS lives!

  I listen to a lot of podcast series these days (a great way of filling up my one hour train commute ) and I've recently subscribed to Perspectives with Jon Udell . This morning I listened to his latest one Where is WinFS now? which featured an interview Read More... Posted 16 May 2008 12:16 by jamie.thomson | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, Microsoft

• We are (still) hiring!

  Periodically I put a call out on this blog asking for people to send us their CVs and in the past its proved to be a good avenue for getting talented people through the doors so I'm doing it again here. You may have heard about Conchango's recent purchase Read More... Posted 14 May 2008 18:01 by jamie.thomson | 3 Comments Filed under: Conchango

• MDX: Getting the current quarter

  I've been wrestling with MDX in PerformancePoint today and was attempting to do something that I thought would be pretty simple. Work out what is the current quarter. No amount of googling turned anything up either. It took me a while to figure out so Read More... Posted 07 May 2008 13:55 by jamie.thomson | 16 Comments Filed under: MDX, PerformancePoint

• SSIS: Absolute and relative paths

  SSIS uses absolute paths to point to objects on the file system. What does that mean? In short it means that in order to point to a file I would have to use the full absolute path, I couldn't give a path that is relative to where the packages resides. Read More... Posted 04 May 2008 20:19 by jamie.thomson | 18 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server, SSIS

• SSDS and Mesh

  SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) and Live Mesh are the two technologies that are uppermost in my mind at the moment. [My thoughts on SSDS are here and on Live Mesh here .] Hence then it didn't take me long to start wondering about the value of the two Read More... Posted 01 May 2008 23:27 by jamie.thomson | 5 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, Microsoft, SSDS, SQL Server Data Services, Live Mesh, cloud computing, Mesh, SDS, SQL Data Services