Blog entries

Varigence Is Golden At SQLBits X

Steven Currie — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:54:33 +0100

Varigence is excited to announce that we will be a Gold Sponsor of SQLBits X. SQLBits X consists of 3 days of amazing SQL Server content and serves as the official UK Technical Launch for SQL Server 2012. SQLBits will be taking place at Novotel West in London from March 29th until March 31st.

Varigence will be exhibiting on site at SQLBits, so stop by our booth and say hello. We’ll be giving away mini-footballs and having a raffle for an IPad 2. In addition, our...

Results of the $10,000 Biml Challenge

Kang Su Gatlin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:35:49 +0100

Presented by

The $10,000 Biml Challenge took place over the last two days (10/12 & 10/13) on the Exhibition Hall floor at SQL PASS Summit 2011.

After compiling the results and conducting the drawing, we now have the winners.

The winners of the $500 drawing are:

Mich...

A (SSAS) Maestro Among Us

Kang Su Gatlin — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Microsoft has recently started a new program called SSAS Maestros. An extremely deep technical training course on Analysis Services, which includes labs and even a take home exam project.

There were hundreds of applicants and eighty-one attendees. From that pool Microsoft recently announced their first class of 11 SSAS Maestros, and I'm happy to congratulate my colleague John Welch for being part of this elite group!

I work with John, so I can honestly say I'm...

Biml: A Primer for the $10,000 Biml Challenge

Kang Su Gatlin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100

This is the first blog entry focused on helping users prepare for the $10,000 Biml Challenge. This will get you a basic understanding of the BI markup language, Biml.

Biml is an XML-based language for specifying the full set of assets in a BI and/or DW project. With Biml you can design everything from relational databases, to data integration and transformation packages, and OLAP cubes. The Biml language is fully specified online. The rest of the blog entry will give a more informa...

The $10,000 Biml Challenge at PASS Summit 2011

Kang Su Gatlin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100

When you have a technology that drastically increases the productivity of BI and Data Warehouse developers and architects, it can be difficult to convey just how groundbreaking it is. We believe Mist & Biml are such products. Once you have the chance to use them, you'll never want to go back to the old way of building your data solutions.

This year at PASS Summit (October 2011, Seattle, WA), we're putting our money where our mouth is by sponsoring the $10,000 Biml Challenge ...

How To - Tasks and Transformations: FTP Task

Varigence Blog — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:26:58 +0100

It’s been a little while since my previous post as we’ve been heads down on our next Mist and Hadron releases. However, I’m back today to begin discussing the several Data Preparation SSIS tasks. I’ve already authored a post on the SSIS File System task and I’m continuing today with a discussion of the FTP task.

Background:

The SSIS FTP task allows you to perform various FTP operations in your package. The task implements eight different operations,...

How To - Tasks and Transformations: Message Queue Task

Varigence Blog — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:22:17 +0100

My previous post returned to the theme of workflow tasks by discussing the SSIS Execute Package task, along with what Mist brings to the table. It’s now time to finish off the workflow tasks with the Message Queue task.

Background:

Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) is a message queue implementation that’s existed in Windows operating systems for over 15 years. Its intent is to allow applications running on separate servers to communicate in a failsafe manner. Fr...

How To – Tasks and Transformations: Execute Package Task

Varigence Blog — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:13:48 +0100

In my last post, I demonstrated the SSIS Foreach File loop container task in conjunction with the File System task. This week, however, I want to return to the theme of workflow tasks and discuss the Execute Package task.

Background:

The Execute Package task has a straightforward purpose; allow a package to run other packages in its workflow. This enables packages to be reusable, modular components that can be shared among workflows. The package being run by the Execute Package ...

Defining the Data Flow in Biml

Varigence Blog — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:48:54 +0100

This post is part 5 of a series on using Biml in BIDS Helper. This post builds on some of the information and the sample from the previous posts.

In the previous post in the series, I talked about controlling the order of execution in the control flow. In this post, the focus will be on the dataflow, and controlling how the data in the pipeline flows from one component to the next. This post uses a new table as the target of the data flow, so you may want to review Part 2: Creating Tab...

Controlling the Control Flow in Biml

Varigence Blog — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:26:58 +0100

This post is part 4 of a series on using Biml in BIDS Helper. This post builds on some of the information and the sample from the previous posts.

So far, we’ve looked at some relatively simple packages, in terms of their flow. In this post, we’re going to look at how to handle more complex control flow in Biml.

One feature of Biml is the ConstraintMode property that’s part of packages and containers. This property controls how precedence constraints are generat...

Copy Data Dynamically with BimlScript

Varigence Blog — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:54:26 +0100

This post is part 3 of a series on using Biml in BIDS Helper. This post builds on some of the information and the sample from the previous posts.

BimlScript enables some interesting scenarios for generating large numbers of SSIS packages automatically. This can come in handy when you need to copy data most or all of the data in one database to a different one. In this case, you could use something like theTransfer SQL Server Objects task, but it...

Creating Tables using Biml and BimlScript

Varigence Blog — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:17:15 +0100

This post is part 2 of a series on using Biml in BIDS Helper. This post builds on some of the information and the sample from the previous posts.

When I’m creating samples for SSIS, I often find it necessary to create supporting tables to go along with the package sample. One of the things I like about Biml is that you can define both your tables and packages in the language. Here’s an example of defining an OrderHeader and OrderDetail table in Biml:

<Biml xmlns="htt...

How To – Tasks and Transformations: Foreach File Loop

Varigence Blog — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:19:13 +0100

I left off last time discussing the SSIS File System task. Although that task does enable convenient bulk file operations, it’s limited due to its lack of wildcard support. Say I need a workflow that routinely copies all of the previous hour’s work orders to another location. By itself, the File System task is only helpful if the work orders are already grouped, which is unlikely. To help handle these more complicated operations, SSIS has a Foreach Loop Container task, which I wil...

Creating a Basic Package Using Biml

Varigence Blog — Sat, 14 May 2011 01:58:29 +0100

This article is going to walk through the process of creating a simple package using Biml and the Biml Package Generator feature in BIDS Helper. To start out, you need to install the latest beta of BIDS Helper from CodePlex. Once that is set up, you should create a new Integration Services project in BIDS. In the project, right-click on the Project in the Solution Explorer. There’s a new item in this menu – Add New Biml File.

Not all measures in an SSAS cube or PowerPivot cut all the hierarchies and vice-versa. This is best explained by example. Let’s use the Adventure Works sample cube and Microsoft Excel 2010.

Start with a pivot table that only has Geography in the rows. In the Adventure Works cube the “Internet” measures don’t cut Geography, so if we were to add a measure from the Internet Customers measure group, e.g., Customer Count, we&rsquo...