Chris Webb's BI Blog: Podcast #1: Nigel Pendse

Chris Webb's BI Blog: Podcast #1: Nigel Pendse: "A while ago I decided that it would be cool to jump on the podcasting bandwagon, and here's my first attempt. I was very lucky to get Nigel Pendse to chat with me about the impact that SQL2005/AS2005 will have on the BI market as a whole; if you don't know who Nigel is he's the man behind the OLAP Report and the OLAP Survey, both of which are great sources of competitive intelligence if you're a software vendor or consultancy, and also a very popular speaker at conferences and seminars. He has a lot of interesting and intelligent observations to make in my opinion."

Windows Virtualization Architecture - from Only4Gurus.com

Virtualization is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Learn it, set it up in your bedroom, whatever, but get on that train.

Windows Virtualization Architecture - from Only4Gurus.com: "Summary: This presentation will cover the following topics: Current virtualization uses and benefits (Uses for virtualization today and Microsoft's current virtualization offerings); Windows Virtualization Architecture (Hypervisor, Virtualization stack, Device virtualization)."

The SQL Server 2005 Coattail Effect: TDWI

The SQL Server 2005 Coattail Effect: TDWI: "Call it a case of both technologies riding in on the coattails of Microsoft?s SQL Server 2005 juggernaut. Deepak Puri, a BI professional with a prominent U.S. auto insurance company, says his employer (which is nominally a mixed DB2 and SQL Server 2000 shop) has been doing more on the SQL Server side of the aisle lately. To some degree, Puri attributes this to the attractiveness of SQL Server?s all-in-one BI stack. ?Our plans for SQL Server 2005 vary, [but] we're probably looking at the BI components and XML support more aggressively than the other pieces,? comments Puri, who says his employer plans to roll out SQL Server 2005 IS, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services next year."

Kirk Haselden : Feature Package for SQL Server 2005

Kirk Haselden : Feature Package for SQL Server 2005: "Microsoft has released a Feature Pack for SQL Server 2005 that is a collection of very useful features including a DB2 OLEDB provider, a MOM package for SS2K5, SS2KDTS Designer components so that you can edit legacy packages inside Integration Services, the JDBC driver and the Management Objects collection which includes important object models such as SMO."

SimonS' SQL Server Stuff : SQL Server Fortnightly Briefings

SimonS' SQL Server Stuff : SQL Server Fortnightly Briefings: "These are intended as being an overview of whats happening in SQL Server land, I think its a great idea. Whats more is they are recorded and that allows you to what at maybe a more convenient time. You can also what in a shorter period by upping the speed in Windows Media Player, and the sound is perfectly audible. Sounds like Tony's been on the helium."

Using SQL Server 2005 sqlcmd Utility

Using SQL Server 2005 sqlcmd Utility: "SQL Server 2005 provides some new command line utilities. One such utility is 'sqlcmd'. The sqlcmd utility is used to run adhoc queries interactively from a command prompt window, or can be used to execute a script containing T-SQL statements. The sqlcmd utility is a great improvement over osql and isql of older releases of SQL Server. In this article, I will explain some of the features this new command line utility brings to administering SQL Server."

Restoring your Data 101

Restoring your Data 101: "Now that your data is backed up, you will need to learn how to restore your data when it is applicable. You might want to restore your data because of a hardware failure or restore data to a backup or standby server. The reasons are endless but the most important thing is to be prepared."

CEO - Managing: Why Projects So Often Go Wrong - FORTUNE - Page

CEO - Managing: Why Projects So Often Go Wrong - FORTUNE - Page: "It's been 30 years since you wrote your book. Is it still relevant?
People still buy copies to give to their boss. The book is really more about management than about technology. The technology has changed immensely, so some of the old chapters are totally out of sync. On the other hand, people haven't changed much. That's why Homer and Shakespeare and the Bible are still relevant, because they're all dealing with human nature. I think that's part of the explanation for this book: The problems of managing people in teams have not changed, though the medium in which people are designing and the tools they are using have. Some people have called the book the 'bible of software engineering.' I would agree with that in one respect: that is, everybody quotes it, some people read it, and a few people go by it. "

My Most Recent Business Intelligence Experiences

My Most Recent Business Intelligence Experiences: "Business intelligence organizations within telecom service providers will have a chance to provide a great deal of value to the industry?s changing business plans. Although there are potential pitfalls with restructuring, the rewards for business intelligence more than make up for those risks. "

If you visit this blog, and noticed a big drop off in posts the last week or two, there's a reason - Blogger is not posting my articles, although it gives me feedback that says it is.

I'll be honest - I don't often visit the page with my blog on it... instead, to post, I just use the Google toolbar, which has a nice button on it that is very convenient. I read an article I like, and that I think others may like but may not run across, and I post it. I do this a few times a day usually.

I visited yesterday to post some of the new Google Analytics code in it, and noticed that many, many posts are missing that should have been on here (for example, the SQL2005 launch.) Very disappointing.

Anyway, I'll keep a better eye on things. Guess I can't complain that much since it is free after all, but still disappointing.

Implementing an Enterprise Risk Data Warehouse

Implementing an Enterprise Risk Data Warehouse: "While the efforts at Basel II compliance only apply to a few large banks in a select few countries, ripple effects are already being felt in wider circles.1 Many other countries are adopting these standards as are financial institutions not subject to these regulations - investment banks and nonbanking finance companies, to name a few. It therefore behooves companies in these industries to closely study the experiences of banks in these initiatives."

Data Integration After The Fact

Data Integration After The Fact: "When building a new data warehouse, most companies concentrate on building a star schema as perfectly as possible. Once the data warehouse has been designed and built, you must usually build indexes to improve those queries that didn?t appreciate the beauty of the star schema. The Extract, Transform & Load (ETL) team focuses on getting the data out of the source systems and into the correct format for the data warehouse. It takes a great deal of trial and error to get the transforms right and validate all of the data. "

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: The Failed Search for a Single View of the Customer

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: The Failed Search for a Single View of the Customer: "Responding to questions at two recent forums, 95 percent of the attendees, representing approximately 100 organizations, agreed that improving customer satisfaction was among their company?s strategic objectives. However, less than 5 percent of them said that they knew what would satisfy their customers. Is this a problem of culture, a failure to balance efficiency and effectiveness, a result of broken business processes? Or, as Ventana Research suspects, is it simply the lack of an enterprise-wide, coherent strategy for information management? "

How to Avoid Bumping Heads - Editorial - CIO

How to Avoid Bumping Heads - Editorial - CIO: "IT and business executives seem to hail from two alien tribes. Here?s how they can come to see eye-to-eye."

The Fine Art of Gathering and Documenting Requirements

The Fine Art of Gathering and Documenting Requirements: "This article will explain how you can help your project by gathering more complete business and technical requirements, ensuring that gaps in the design do not exist and test coverage is significantly improved."

"RACing ahead with Oracle on VMWare Series" - Part II: Oracle RAC and RAW disk setup on Windows 2003 Enterprise Server

"RACing ahead with Oracle on VMWare Series" - Part II: Oracle RAC and RAW disk setup on Windows 2003 Enterprise Server

Nanohousing and Relationship Folding: A Theoretical Step in the Journey of Nanohousing

Nanohousing and Relationship Folding: A Theoretical Step in the Journey of Nanohousing: "Again, today's data models are frequently represented in only two dimensions. As shown below, flat planes of information are linked together and limited by our ability to visualize a different view. "

ACM Queue - Why Your Data Won't Mix - New tools and techniques can help ease the pain of reconciling schemas.

ACM Queue - Why Your Data Won't Mix - New tools and techniques can help ease the pain of reconciling schemas.

Good Article:

From a practical perspective, one of the reasons that schema heterogeneity is difficult and time-consuming is that it requires both domain and technical expertise: you need people who understand the business meaning of each of the schemas being reconciled and people skilled in writing transformations (e.g., SQL or XQuery experts).

While schema heterogeneity is challenging for humans, it is drastically more challenging for programs. A program is given only the two schemas to reconcile, but those schemas are merely symbols. They do not capture the entire meaning or intent of the schemas—those are only in the minds of the designers.