April 5th, 2012
Josh Robinson
I have used both the Teradata and Oracle connectors in the past. While there are some “gotcha’s” (for example you must have SQL Enterprise), overall they provide the fastest possible way to extract data from either of those two sources. v2.0 brings support for SQL 2012 and the latest releases of Teradata and Oracle, as well as bug fixes and enhancements. Interestingly, it appears that “v2.0” is only for SQL 2012 and “v1.2” is included and intended for SQL 2008 / 2008 R2.
I originally saw this as a post by Matt Masson to the SSIS Team Blog.
You can download the updated connectors here. Here is the overview from the download page:
Overview
Microsoft Connector Version 2.0 for Oracle by Attunity – The Oracle source and destination components are written to achieve optimal performance when loading data into Oracle or unloading data from Oracle in the context of Microsoft SSIS.
Microsoft Connector Version 2.0 for Teradata by Attunity - The components are written to achieve optimal performance when loading data into Teradata or unloading data from Teradata in the context of Microsoft SSIS.
Microsoft SSIS Connectors by Attunity Version 2.0 is a minor release. It supports SQL Server 2012 Integration Services and includes bug fixes and support for updated Oracle and Teradata product releases.
The following enhancements were made:
- Oracle Enhancement – LOB Support
- Support was added for the following Oracle LOB types: CLOB, NCLOB and BLOB. These LOB types are supported by the Oracle Source component and the Oracle Destination component in array load mode.
- Oracle and Teradata Bug Fixes – Some hot key issues were fixed in the Oracle and Teradata connectors UI.
- Oracle and Teradata Bug Fixes – Localization issues were fixed in the Oracle and Teradata connectors.
- Teradata Enhancement – Support for TPT API 14.0 and TPT API 13.10.
- Support was added for Teradata 13.10 and Teradata 14.0 by supporting TPT API version 13.0 and TPT API version 14.0 (14.00.00.02 or higher). Previous versions of the TPT API are still supported.
- Teradata Enhancement – Starting from Teradata 13.0 Teradata database supports DDL with no primary index which was introduced specifically for loading data faster into Teradata; these tables were not listed in the table dropdown list.
- Teradata Bug Fix – Teradata DDL supports column names being reserved words. Teradata Connector could not work with tables having such columns.
- Teradata Bug Fix – Teradata destination component failed to read problematic rows from the error table with the following error: “Errors while trying to read error tables. Invalid TPT operator”.
April 3rd, 2012
Josh Robinson
There is no need to download the 28GB BI Image X (which at the time of this writing hasn’t been updated to SQL 2012 RTM). There are instructions on how to build an all-up SQL 2012 and SharePoint 2010 demo VM with instructions for configuring all of the latest SQL 2012 tools including DQS, MDM, PowerPivot for SharePoint and more. The full instructions are here. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with a full deployment of the latest BI software from Microsoft.
Here’s the summary from the link above:
This how-to article will guide you through the process of building a Hyper-V virtual machine with Microsoft SQL Server 2012, the latest Visual Studio 2010 development tools, SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), and an assortment of other software products to create a test environment ready for testing and product demos.
March 10th, 2012
Josh Robinson
I use VMware to run 64-bit guest OS’s for development and testing on my laptop. (Windows 7 only allows 32-bit guests, Windows 8 incorporates Hyper-V so this limitation will go away soon). One of the nice benefits of running a VM is that I can suspend and bring it back online in a matter of seconds each time I want to use the VM. Unfortunately, this comes with a negative side effect – the drive on the host that I am storing the VMs on thrashes for up to 15 minutes after VMWare was closed. At the end of the day, if I had just suspended my VM and tried to shut down the Windows 7 host OS, it would take 15 minutes to shut down the laptop.
Fortunately I found the fix on a SharePoint blog. Essentially you have add a setting to the VMWare config file. For VMWare 7, the file is located here: C:ProgramDataVMwareVMware Workstationconfig.ini. The setting that you need to add is mainMem.useNamedFile = “false”. One thing to be careful of is if you copy/paste from the web, the quotes on the “false” will be curly directional style rather than the straight kind that are required for the config file.
One other setting that I changed was in the main preferences for VMWare under the Memory tab, I set the “How should the system allocate memory for virtual machines?’ to “Fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM”. I am able to do this since I have 16GB of RAM on my laptop, not sure if this is quite as feasible with less RAM.
March 6th, 2012
Matt Wollner
I just received a new Dell Precision M4600 from work. I wanted to install Windows on a SSD so that it would fly. I know that if you are configuring the m4600 on the Dell website, you are given the option to add a 2nd 128GB (SATA3) Mobility Solid State Drive for just $480.00.
Since my laptop was ordered for me, I did not have the option to add this on, and $500 is a bit much when you can purchase a 128GB SSD for $100-$200. I called Dell to find out what my options were. After several calls and live chats, I was told that there were 0 options to add on a new SSD disk.
I did a little digging on my on and found 2 options.
- Replace the DVD drive with a HD Caddy and install a 2.5″ SSD. The main problem with this approach is that you will loose your internal DVD drive.
- Install a mSATA SSD. This can be installed in the WWAN slot. I don’t have a WWAN card so that makes this an easy decision.
I purchased a Kingston 64 GB mSATA SSD for $89 on Amazon. Here are the very simple steps to install the mSATA card
- Remove Battery
- Remove the Base Cover
- Install mSATA card in the WWAN slot. You will also need 1 tiny screw. I don’t know the size or name. I just hapended to have one.
Dell has some really good step by step instructions to installing components.
Dell’s Precision M4600 Owner’s Manual - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/wsM4600/en/SM/index.html
After putting the cover and battery back in I turned on my PC and Windows instantly recognized the drive. I went into my Disk management and formatted the drive. Being a SSD it took about 15 seconds. Then I installed window to the new drive.
When installing Windows you want to make sure that all you user files and program files get installed to your main hard drive and not your SSD. Make sure that you run RegEdit and edit the following before installing any other programs or creating any users
February 17th, 2012
Josh Robinson
Periodically Microsoft refreshes their BI Demo virtual image that contains a fully configured instance of their latest BI tools with demo data. Last week they made the latest version available for download. They are calling it BI Image X and it contains SQL 2012 RC0 and it is available here. This one contains the new PowerView tool, as well as SharePoint and PowerPivot. You will need a minimum of 8GB of RAM allocated to the VM.
Here’s the official description:
The Base ImageX Server is a virtual machine that can be hosted in Hyper-V that allows a user to test out the latest Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 – RC0. The virtual machine has been configured to support the use of PowerView reports, PowerPivot Excel documents and various content packs allowing the user to explore the capabilities of SQL Server 2012. Working with the demos that can be installed on the ImageX server the user will have a clear picture of how the SQL Server 2012, Office and SharePoint tools support and enhance the self-service business intelligence environment.
**If you need to convert to VMWare to run on your dev machine (How come Windows 7 still doesn’t support 64-bit VMs?), you can use VMWare vCenter Convert to convert the virtual hard disk to VMware.
February 15th, 2012
Josh Robinson
Just got word from Matt Masson on the SSIS development team that EzAPI has been updated to support SQL 2012. This is greate news! I have been using EzAPI for the last couple of months and I am very satisfied with it as an API for SSIS that allows me to focus on solving the problems I need to solve rather than getting hung up on the nuances of the SSIS COM objects and and wrappers. If I need access to something that is not supported by EzAPI (Package Configurations, for example), I can just cast as a Package object and use the standard API and convert back to EzPackage when I finish.
Get the bits here (note, looks like you will need to compile the DLL yourself). For now, click the link to download Change Set 86517.
**UPDATE**
Matt Masson posted the change list to the SSIS Team Blog:
Changes
- Task and Component IDs updated for SQL 2012
- For 2005/2008 support, please use a previous version of the code
- Project upgraded to .NET 4
- EzProject – SSIS 2012 Project object model support
- Project Connection Manager support
- EzScript – Script Task support
- EzSrcDestMultiStreamPackage – new package template
- EzLookup – new TreatDuplicateKeysAsError property
- EzFileSystemTask – fixed multiple properties
- EzActiveXScript – Removed as it is no longer supported in SQL 2012
Also, it looks like this release only works against 2012. If you need SQL 2008, you will need the older version.
February 15th, 2012
Josh Robinson
Stumbled across a nice SQL Server build number site a while back that has a comprehensive (I think?) list of every SQL Server build from the SQL 7 beta 3 up through SQL 2012 RC1 including every CU and hotfix along the way. There is also a link to download the KB that corresponds to each build if appropriate. If you happen to know of a build that isn’t listed, it looks like this site is somewhat crowd-sourced, so post the details in the comments and it will likely make it up to the main page.
(If you look in the comments, you can even find little “anonymous” nuggets, such as the following: “SQL2012 RTM is 11.0.2100.19”)
I saw Jason Strate’s (Blog|Twitter) recent call out for the February #Meme15 assignment, “Why and how you use LinkedIn?”, so I figured I’d chime in.
“Why I use LinkedIn?’ Simply put, it is my online resume. While I try to update an actual resume in MS Word, having my information on LinkedIn allows me one online location where the content is saved. But in a day and age where job security is not always dependent on what you know, I myself try to keep my MS Word resume up to date, and simply have LinkedIn mirror it.
As far as “How I use LinkedIn”, I’ll take this moment to say that I do not use it to connect to every person I know of or read about or even tried to get a job from. On that last comment, that means I always decline accepting connections from random recruiters or even other SQL Server Professionals with whom I have never talked to or even corresponded to. It’s not that I am being an elitist or such; it’s just that if I haven’t talked with you or met you in person, I simply won’t connect. To me, this ensures my connections are genuine. Each and every connection made, I feel I have worked with them in some way or another, and usually there’s a back story to relay in regards to that connection. Whether it’s former co-workers from my days at Humana, to my early SQL Server reports and applications work at WaMu or Citi, to even recent connections via SQL Saturdays or other SQL Server Community events, the people I connect to, I know.
Anyway, that’s my take on Jason Strate’s call for the #Meme15. There is definitely more to LinkedIn, and opportunities abound within its network of connections. But for now, this is why and how I use LinkedIn.
My two and a half cents…
February 10th, 2012
Josh Robinson
One of the biggest frustrations with Microsoft Live Meeting 2005/2007 is that there is no scaling built in to the screen share capabilities. If the presenter is running 1920×1080 and clients are running 1280×720 the presenter is not notified, but the viewers will not see the entire screen and instead have to scroll.
We are in the process of transitioning to Office 365, and one of the first features of Lync 2010 that I wanted to confirm was that Lync supported client screen scaling. I am happy to report that it does, and it works perfectly! To the right is a screenshot of a meeting shrunken as far as possible. Some other very cool screen sharing features are available as well, including sharing (and scaling) multiple screens. I have 3 screens in my development environment and I can choose to show any screen, any application running on a screen, or all 3 screens (2 are 1080p and 1 is 1600×1200 and it was not a problem). You also can pull up a video thumbnail of what the clients are seeing, or even share a PowerPoint deck natively (not just sharing the PowerPoint app, but the .pptx file itself). Lync 2010 is a great step forward over Live Meeting.
