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For those of you interested in the principles of Fast Track I thought it’d be worth putting out my SQLBits VI presentation slide deck on my blog. It will of course be available from the SQLBits website in due course. In about 6 weeks time that will be the better resource as the session recordings will be available at that time. Only then will you ...

One of my focuses at the moment is the work that Microsoft have done with various hardware providers to deliver “Fast Track” – A reference architecture for SQL Server Data Warehousing that delivers predictable blistering performance on prescribed commodity hardware. Sounds great I think you’ll agree.  What is even better is that the ...

In SQL Server there are a couple of ways to set startup parameters:  SQL Server Configuration Manager Command Prompt Net start Of these only one can be relied upon as a permanent option. That is the Configuration Manager.  I have been toying with startup parameters recently as part of my interest in Fast Track Data ...

I recently had to investigated a client replication topology.  I needed to understand the publications, subscribers and the articles. The problems I was facing were as follows: The replication topology was only defined on the production infrastructure. There was no documentation about the replication topology. I had no way of ...

Simon Sabin has organised a SQLSocial event for this coming Tuesday. It’s at the Smithfield Tavern and will start at 18:30. It features some of the worlds most famous SQL Server celebrities in an informal setting. These guys are over in the UK for DevWeek and have kindly given up an evening to meet you all. 85 people have already registered – so ...

In October 2009 I created 2 codeplex projects which I would to tell you about: SQL Server Reporting Services MSBuild Tasks (ssrsmsbuildtasks) A few years ago I created some tasks for MSBuild to help deploy reports for my project, details can be found here,  since then my tasks have been re-used in a few other projects within my ...

Andrew Fryer, Microsoft IT Pro evangelist extraordinaire, has 25 free tickets to give away for this Friday’s SQLBits SQL Server 2008 and R2 day!  Head over to his blog here to find out how you can claim a ticket and bag yourself a great geeky day out. You are also most welcome to stay over and enjoy the community day on the Saturday although ...

I have been working with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, since its first release, within many of my projects.  One of the biggest tasks, that I find with writing a report is the testing the reports and making sure the data that is displayed is correct.  My method of developing and testing reports is as follows: Write the ...

It's that time of year again!  SQLBits registration is now open and this time it is going to be bigger and better than ever! For the first time SQLBits will be held during the week and at the week-end as we have grown the event to span three days. It’s also going to be held at the world famous Celtic Manor hotel – home to the 2010 Ryder ...

[Every time I come across this problem I seem to spend a good five minutes scanning the interwebs trying to find the answer - maybe if I write it here it'll be easier to find in the future!] SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 has a bug concerning the FixedColumnHeaders property of a tablix. The property's description is given as ...