Sometimes it is better not to know certain things.  For instance, do you know how sanitary your favorite Tex Mex restaurant is?  What about your favorite Sushi bar?  Well, there is public information on food establishment inspections so...

Join us live June 21st for in-depth training on Microsoft’s Big Data solution set . This free Webcast from Microsoft Virtual Academy will be the first in a series tailored for architects and seasoned developers interested in a demo-heavy learning experience...

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 was announced by Quentin Clark during the Microsoft TechEd 2013 keynote. Designed and developed with our cloud-first principles in mind, SQL Server 2014 builds on the momentum of SQL Server 2012, released just 14 months ago....

Edgenet provides optimized product data for suppliers, retailers, and search engine. Used online and in stores, Edgenet solutions ensure that businesses and consumers can make decisions based on timely, accurate product information. And that speed of...

It’s a great start to the premiere North American event of the year for IT Pros and enterprise developers and in addition to the post and video on the new Microsoft Cloud OS YouTube channel from Microsoft Server and Tools President Satya Nadella discussing...

Today at TechEd North America we announced a wave of products and services that will help customers embrace the “enterprise cloud era.” The next version of our data platform – SQL Server 2014 – is a key part of the day’s news. Designed and developed with...

TechEd North America takes place next week, June 3rd – 6 th in New Orleans, Louisiana. While the city promises good times, gumbo and Po boys, you can expect a whole lot of technical goodness to come your way from the conference itself. From the Foundational...

How much do you know about SQL Server, really ? Test your knowledge and play our daily SQL Server A & Q Challenge on Twitter to find out and earn a chance to win a PowerStick (ARV $75)! To kick off the festivities for TechEd North America next week...

Using a variety of data sources has been a daunting task for mere mortals.  Now, with the Data Explorer add-in for Excel, you don’t need to be a super hero to unlock data gems.  The Microsoft Data Explorer Preview for Excel is now available...

Today Hortonworks announced the general availability of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows, the industry’s first 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows. The beta version of HDP for Windows was released two months...

The 3 rd Annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey has just been launched by North Bridge and GigaOM Research . We are participating in this survey because your feedback on cloud computing is important to us and the industry.  We want to hear about...

Here on the SQL Server Blog, we spend a lot of time talking about the features and technical “how to” behind our products. The only thing we love more than getting into the details of our products is sharing real-world examples of how they help our customers...

Guest blog post by @SamMarraccini of EMC Corporation.  To read more from Sam, please visit Sam’s blog at www.insideflash.com . Flash technology is changing everything, nothing new there. Chances are the device you are reading this BLOG on contains...

This video demonstrates how to view a Reporting Services report on an Apple iPad that has Apple iOS 6 and Apple Safari. You'll learn how to access reports from the report server and from email, use touch to collapse and expand row groups, sort columns...

SQL Server 2012 PDW has a feature called PolyBase, that enables you to integrate Hadoop data with PDW data. By using PDW with PolyBase capabilities, a user can: Use an external table to define a table structure for Hadoop data. Query Hadoop data by running...

Looking back at this month’s inaugural PASS Business Analytics Conference in Chicago, we can’t believe what an amazing experience it has been! This event included 70+ sessions over the course of two and a half days and was attended by more than 1,100...

Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, which includes Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks to keep your Windows Azure connected to your on-premises infrastructure and applications. Windows Azure Infrastructure...

It’s the final day of the PASS Business Analytics Conference . It’s been a valuable opportunity to learn from other industry leaders, partners and customers, all of whom have great ideas and insight on what the future of analytics looks like. As far as...

Today at the PASS Business Analytics Conference , Microsoft technical fellow Amir Netz and partner manager Kamal Hathi took to the stage to demonstrate how people experience insights. As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post , understanding how people experience...

For the latest and greatest on business intelligence and business analytics, look no further than the PASS Business Analytics Conference , which kicks off today in Chicago. At a time when data is increasingly at the forefront of the industry conversation...

In February 2013 Microsoft received the Common Criteria (CC) certificate for SQL Server 2012 SP1 Enterprise Edition (English) x64 (Version 11.0.3000.0) at EAL4+ and compliant with U.S. Government Protection Profile for Database Management Systems, Version...

This month, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of SQL Server 2012, and we’d like to give a little shout out to our community to say, “Happy anniversary!” We can hardly believe that it was just one year ago that SQL Server 2012 was released to...

Gartner’s annual Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit kicked off earlier today where we are focused on sharing our perspective and solutions with customers, partners and industry leaders interested in big data and business intelligence . Later...

The challenge of running a business is becoming more complex each day. Though data is more plentiful and accessible in current times, how to analyze that data and create actionable insights remains a challenge.  Navistar, one of the world’s largest...

In this guest post from Hyoun Park, PASS Business Analytics Conference (PASS BAC) speaker, we get an interesting twist on the challenge of Big Data and how to stop looking for solutions in all the wrong ways and all the wrong places.   You can learn...