Free training 1/27 from PASS DBA VC! SQL Server Consolidation: How to Decide on the Right Approach (noon ET)

This session will give you the information you need to choose between using a virtualization, instance, or database consolidation option. Get a decision tree to help guide you through the process of selecting a consolidation option and explore customer case studies and deployment scenarios.
http://www.sqlpass.org/Events/ctl/ViewEvent/mid/521.aspx?ID=277

How Fast Will it Take BI to Move Outside the Firewall to the Cloud?

Not sure if the "cloud" needs to be outside of the firewall, and it all depends on what information and enterprise environment you're talking about.


In general "Cloud" based reporting and management of enterprise business intelligence offers significant advantages - consistency of formatting and reporting, more consistent analysis, ability to better integrate distributed enterprise operations, etc. (e.g., Consider a worldwide enterprise supply chain management environment.)
The issue is going to be security, but we're assuming that the "cloud" is hosted by some third-party centralized utility. A hybrid envrionment of intra and inter enterprise environments, some behind the "firewall" and some external depending on the requirements will be the more likely scenario.

Introducing PowerPivot for Excel

PowerPivot (formerly known as "Project Gemini") is an innovative data analysis technology that redefines how organizations apply and succeed with BI. IT managers can deliver corporate BI solutions and also establish a managed BI collaboration environment that gives business users the power to get the answers they need to make decisions in the familiar Excel environment. This facilitates information sharing and collaboration on user-generated BI solutions, and enables the IT department to manage user-generated BI solutions with increased operational efficiency.

• Empower your users: On the desktop side, PowerPivot for Excel 2010 delivers unmatched computational power and advanced analysis features such as Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), with the familiarity of Excel to accelerate user adoption. Users can hit the ground running and transform enormous quantities of data from virtually any source with incredible speed into meaningful business information.

• Facilitate sharing and collaboration: On the server side, PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 provides a collaboration foundation so users can easily share their analysis models thru Excel Services in PowerPivot galleries, accessible virtually anytime and from any location. Users can enjoy SharePoint's attractive user interface-browsing at its best-and the same performance and features as the Excel client.

• Increase IT efficiency: On the operational side, SQL Server PowerPivot enables organizations to meet the challenges of self-service BI with increased efficiency. IT departments can use PowerPivot Management Dashboard to discover mission-critical workbook applications and keep an eye on performance, availability, and quality of service. Automatic data refreshing in SharePoint ensures the data remains consistent with the underlying data sources. By centralizing BI and data management, IT departments can ensure data consistency, integrity, security, and compliance.

PowerPivot changes the game of BI by satisfying user needs, IT needs, and business needs in new and compelling ways. Users can drill into any aspect of their business and gain deeper insight on their own. IT can proactively manage the user-generated BI solutions. The business benefits through maximized use of IT investments, higher productivity, increased agility, and better, faster, more relevant decisions overall.


Betas

Finally, what we've all been waiting for, November 2009 marked the entire next wave of Microsoft Business Intelligence is available in Beta. Grab yourself a copy of PowerPivot for Excel 2010 beta, Microsoft Office 2010 beta, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 beta, and SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP3 and try out the exciting new BI capabilities from Microsoft.

1. Explore the power of the PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint add-ins, and pull together data from across your organization or from outside the firewall, build analytic reports, and share them with colleagues through SharePoint. If you're an IT Pro don't forget to check out the PowerPivot dashboards that give you visibility and insight into what PowerPivot applications are being built across your organization. To learn more, Follow us at www.twitter.com/powerpivot or become a Fan at www.facebook.com/powerpivot. Check out our videos, customer testimonials, and contests to come in the new year!

2. The new Business Intelligence capabilities in Excel 2010. Connect to an Analysis Services cube and try the new Slicers, Sparklines, Custom Sets, Write-back and more.

3. Explore what SharePoint Server 2010 has to offer with PerformancePoint Services, Visio Services, and Excel Services, and explore how the SharePoint platform makes the BI experience much more collaborative through tags, notes, wiki's, etc.

4. We delivered a big competitive differentiator with via PowerPivot and Self-service BI in SQL Server 2008 R2. Breakthrough Agility in working with data on the client continues to amaze business users and techies alike with SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel, garnering praise during its announcement at the SharePoint Conference a few weeks ago. Showcasing the new types of Insight & Oversight that are delivered through Analysis Services and Reporting Services integration with SharePoint.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Eval (including MDS and Orinoco)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (all four packages)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack

Help Disaster Victims Of The Earthquake in Haiti

Help people affected by disasters like the earthquake in Haiti by donating to the American Red Cross International Response Fund

For more information, please visit http://www.redcross.org/.

The Three Key Phases for Data Migration – and Beyond

Companies who have already done major data migration or consolidation work often struggle with incompatible system designs and technologies, limited knowledge of what data exists, where it came from, and a lack of standards on what constitutes "good" or "valuable" data. All of these issues have the same root cause: inconsistent, unreliable and inaccurate data in the source systems that is capable of polluting the new application.


This white paper examines how data management technology can solve these issues through a three-phase process of analyzing, improving and controlling data.

Click here to download:


http://www.b-eye-network.com/survey/index.php?s=59

PerformancePoint Services

New Authentication Options for Data Sources


PerformancePoint 2010 has some new settings that control how authentication to the data source itself is accomplished. You’ll find these options under the “Editor” tab for an individual data source:

If you were web administrator of a PerformancePoint 2007 instance you might recall a similar set of options provided by the Bpm.ServerConnectionPerUser and BPM.UseASCustomData web.config properties. With the above change:

1. the options are configurable per-datasource, instead of per-webapp
2. no web.config juggling is required
3. there are no longer equivalent options in web.config
   

Please note that “Unattended Service Account” is separate from application pool identity. Unattended Service Account is a PerformancePoint service application setting.
Wade Dorrell

Program Manager, SharePoint BI

Planning for Upgrade from SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to SharePoint Server 2010

In order to upgrade to SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010, you must first be running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 at SP2 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 at SP2, respectively.
For customers running prior versions of SharePoint, including Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003, this means that you must first upgrade to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2 prior to upgrading to 2010 versions.

Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 with SP2 is available as a free download, and trial versions of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 are available and supported for use in this upgrade/migration process:

SP2 Slipstream Downloads and Trial Versions


Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (32-bit) with SP2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (64-bit) with SP2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9FB41E51-CB03-4B47-B89A-396786492CBA


Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Trial Version (32-bit) with SP2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2E6E5A9C-EBF6-4F7F-8467-F4DE6BD6B831

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Trial Version (64-bit) with SP2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3015FDE4-85F6-4CBC-812D-55701FBFB563
Please note that the trial product versions are licensed for 180 days of use from the date of installation.

Upgrade Method

This upgrade process should be done using the Database Migration approach documented in the following links:
Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Determine upgrade approach (Office SharePoint Server)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263447.aspx

Determine upgrade approach [Windows SharePoint Services]
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287821.aspx

SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 (pre-release documentation)
Determine upgrade approach (SharePoint Server 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263447(office.14).aspx

Determine upgrade approach (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287821(office.14).aspx


Note that this method is referred to as “Database attach upgrade” in pre-release documentation

Please note that there are manual steps involved in this upgrade path in order to maintain some configuration information, as documented in the links above.

Example Upgrade Sequence

The upgrade documentation above should be referenced for full detail and information, but the following illustrates an example of an upgrade sequence for moving from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010.

1. Prepare Farms

a. Set up a small, temporary farm running Office SharePoint Server 2007
b. Set up full SharePoint 2010 farm and verify that it is configured and running correctly

2. Upgrade content from 2003 to 2007

a. Detach the content databases from the 2003 farm and take the 2003 farm offline
b. Attach the content databases to the 2007 farm and upgrade them
c. Verify the content has upgraded and that the 2007 farm is working correctly

3. Upgrade content from 2003 to 2007

a. Detach the content databases from the 2007 farmb. Attach the content databases to the SharePoint Server 2010 farm and upgrade them in parallel
c. Verify the content has upgraded to SharePoint 2010 and is working correctly

4. Start serving requests on the SharePoint Server 2010 farm

Again, this is just an example for illustration: for full detail, including all steps and important considerations, please review the existing and pre-release documentation linked above.
Additional Information and Notes

Please note that SharePoint Server 2010 Beta cannot be upgraded to the final release version (RTM). Any use of these steps or guidelines with any pre-release version of SharePoint 2010 should be for testing/evaluation only.

This upgrade path will necessarily mean a move from 32-bit OS architecture to 64-bit OS architecture. Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 were supported only on 32-bit operating systems, as opposed to SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010, which are supported only on 64-bit operating systems.

The database platform selected for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 should be consistent with the planned platform for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. For example, if SQL Server 2008 will serve as the database software for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 trial versions you should maintain that version for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 to avoid downgrade support limitations such as SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2005. For additional information on SQL Server 2008 downgrade rights see:

SQL Server 2008 Licensing Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx

Five Tech Startup Predictions For 2010

It's that time of the year again when everyone provides their predictions for the upcoming year. I'd like to take a look at five predictions for 2010 related to tech startups.


Some of these predictions might just be wishful thinking but there's always hope!

Prediction #1 - Acquisitions

Overall I expect the startup market to be very hot in 2010 and the year will see many acquisitions -- especially for talent. Larger startups will throw some of their big venture capital warchests to acquire smaller startups to gain the talent in-house. An example of this style of acquisition from 2009 would be Facebook's acquisition of Friendfeed.
In another example of "talent" acquisitions, Twitter acquired Mixer Labs earlier this month. Most seem to believe this acquisition was made because the founders were previously at Google in the mobile department. I expect Twitter to open their bank account for many acquisitions in 2010. While all will be small and for "undisclosed amounts", it's important for Twitter to stock up on talent in 2010.
While larger startups will acquire a large number of smaller startups, the big money will come from the tech giants including Microsoft and Google. One startup that will see acquisition bidding is NY-based Etsy. While I don't expect the company to sell, I do expect to read lots of stories about the multiple acquisition offers they will receive.
Prediction #2 - Location

Location-based services will continue to be hot in 2010. You can be sure that the major startup blogs will continue to write daily about anything location-related. I believe that eventually most will realize that no one cares where you are but this will take until early 2011 to materialize. Location will grow in importance to merchants but not to a user's social graph.

Prediction #3 - Utilities will be hot

This is the prediction that I post each and every year. I'd like to see utilities get the spotlight in 2010. These are the startups that I generally refer to as "unsexy" but are the ones that tend to provide real time-saving value. Many of these services are profitable and while used by millions of people rarely see the same coverage as other categories. By focusing the spotlight on utility services, this will help to get more developers to create new utility services. Business-to-business startups that service the small to medium segment will see an even brighter spotlight in 2010 based on revenue generation.

Prediction #4 - State and local government will jump head first into the startup market

In 2009 we saw some state and local governments across the U.S. start to realize how important technology startups are to the economy both from an income and expense reduction standpoint. My hope is that we see more involvement between startups and government in 2010 to help foster innovation. The involvement will come in the form of tax credits and other financial incentives with a heavy focus on retaining startups in a particular location.

Prediction #5 - Many, many more small and quick app-based startups will launch

This year saw tremendous growth of mobile thanks mostly to the iPhone and to the new Android mobile platform. Next year developers will create more mobile apps than in previous years combined. Developers will be looking for the gold rush in the Android app space much like the iPhone market two years ago.

Let's make 2010 remembered as The Year of Optimism!

Negative events have dominated the news for a couple of years. So now when the wind’s turning let’s capitalise on it and be optimistic. How about we all make it our new years resolution to be optimistic? What have we got to lose? After all without hope there’s just time. And if time is all that’s left in the world we will be in the sorry state of just killing time. So let’s start a new chapter and make 2010 The Year of Optimism!


Let's all make a chain of optimism around the world and make sure 2010 will be remembered as The Year of Optimism!

Leaders owe it to their followers to spread optimism without excluding reality. We need to inspire and give people not only hope but resilience. What’s going to happen to your company, your job or you if you are not optimistic and keep making intelligent attempts to succeed?
Sure we have to be clear about the challenges we face due to external factors. But we also have to look not only at what mistakes we did but also at what we did right. Let’s find new ways of doing things. Tough times after all does provide new opportunities to succeed.
Now is not the time to throw in the towel but to have the courage to move on to pastures new. Highlight the good things companies and people are doing now despite the tough times.
Look at how the recession is affecting the business, both positively and negatively. Don’t forget your customers and their buying habits and how you can serve their current needs better. When you are able to provide an equally good, or even better, service during a recession, your customers will never forget you.
Adversity does bring opportunities as well as positive changes if you let it. Don’t be negative and overcautious since that will squash all possibilities of turning this recession into a success. Having said that I should add the importance of not promising something you can not deliver. Much better to undersell and overdeliver!
It’s possible that hard times are here to stay for quite some time yet, but you still have to be optimistic. Sooner or later the tide will turn and you have to look at possibilities instead of concentrating on what can’t be done and being too cautious to take a calculated risk. If you do you will be left behind when good times are here again.
Pessimists actually have a 19 percent higher mortality rate than optimists, according to a Mayo Clinic study. So let’s do things that make us happy and be optimistic in 2010. That will make us more motivated to make a difference and improve the performance of our company, our work, our lives and altogether have an impact on the performance of the whole world.

Let’s make 2010 the year when we all join forces, are optimistic and aim for the stars! The worst that can happen is that we will have even better health, more friends and better quality of life.
Wishing you all A Fantastic New Year! 2010 – THE YEAR OF OPTIMISM