An interesting confluence of events this week takes me both back to the past as I ponder the future! What gives? Well, the recent release of Tomislav Piasevoli’s (blog|twitter) new book, MDX with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Cookbook, reminded me of my first meeting with him at a PASS Summit event a [...]

Yesterday, Denny Cherry (blog|twitter) and I co-presented a 24HOP session for the Fall 2011 lineup, “So How Does the BI Workload Impact the Database Engine?” 24HOP stands for 24 Hours of PASS and is a semiannual roundup of speakers from the SQL Server community. Initially, this event consisted of 24 consecutive sessions, each lasting an [...]

Yesterday, I delivered a presentation at SQLRally on the new data visualization features in the latest version of Reporting Services. We did some experimentation with Indicators to validate the rules for Start and End, which sacrificed the later portion of my presentation on visual design best practices. On the one hand, that meant the session [...]

Each month the PASS Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Virtual Chapter enlists the community to present about a relevant topic, with “All about Analysis Services” as the topic for April 2011. Today I delivered my Designing Cubes for Performance presentation (download slides here). I will post a link to the recording when it becomes available. Two really great references [...]

When I was a kid, living in New Jersey at the time, my dad was very involved in sports car racing and motorcycles. Our garage was never used to actually park a car that we rode around in. Instead, it was strewn with all kinds of half-built engines and body parts. Car body parts, that [...]