Planning for TechEd Australia 2012! is well underway, and this year I have the opportunity be technical track owner for the Database & BI track along with my colleagues Raja and Simon Brown. Teched wouldn’t be a success without great content from...

This document takes you through the essential technical details for planning and testing an upgrade of existing SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2 instances to SQL Server 2012. You will be presented with best practices for preparation, planning, pre-upgrade...

The managed self-service business intelligence (BI) capabilities of SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint Server 2010 make it easier than ever for business users to create and share rich, powerful BI solutions through familiar Microsoft Office applications,...

Thank you to those who attended my SQL Saturday presentation last Saturday at Epping Boys High School. It was a very well organised event by Grant Paisley pictured below, enjoying the many boxes of pizza made available during the lunch break for attendees...

If you really have a requirement for scaling out your database workload today then an option that is available to you is the public cloud with SQL Azure. This enables you to future proof your architecture and manage the scale without the complexity and...

Exciting news! SQL Server 2012 has released to manufacturing. You can download an evaluation of the product today and can expect general availability to begin on April 1 ( Note: This site is still getting updated, so try again tomorrow for the link to...

PASS SQLSaturday’s are free 1-day training events for SQL Server professionals that focus on local speakers, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, and making it all happen through the efforts of volunteers. Whether you're attending a...

HP and Microsoft engineering teams have worked together to create a reference architecture to Accelerate Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database workloads with a fully-flash based HP/Microsoft architecture and achieve significant performance increases...

  Designing a Private Cloud Strategy that meets Business Demands Your enterprise supports hundreds (or thousands) of applications to meet business demands- and as demand increases, so does the number of applications. This growth increases the cost...

With the December update to SharePoint 2010, you can now view your existing BI solutions in your SharePoint on your iPad devices that use the iOS 5 Safari browser. Users can view PerformancePoint scorecards, analytic charts and grids, Excel Services reports...

Just in case you missed it over the holiday period, Pej from the SQL Server product team made available Power View over the Internet so you are able to interact and create your very own reports without having to install anything. All you need is a browser...

To help you evaluate your SQL Server database(s) readiness to move onto our public offering – SQL Azure, we have made available a new experimental online service - SQL Azure Compatibility Assessment   on SQL Azure Labs. This services checks compatibility...

I have recently had the opportunity to present on the topic of BigData at several forums including the DW 2.0 Asia-Pac Summit and at the Microsoft Big Picture event. At both these events there were sceptics of BigData and as such I thought I might write...

The new Upgrade Assistant for SQL Server 2012 from our partner Scalability Experts is now available to download and use. It is a free web-downloadable tool.  It performs application compatibility testing and detects potential functional and performance...

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support & custom during 2011 and wish you a happy and safe festive season, and a prosperous 2012! Look forward to working with you to make your database and BI dreams blossom with...

  It has been a while since I have blogged and this has been due to my recent involvement with the Big Picture event that took place in Melbourne and Sydney. I was busy with the technical setup and developing a demo scenario for the Insights 24/7...

The SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC) is available now. It is the first release which is feature complete. The SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate delivers additional enhancements and capabilities built on the already robust CTP3: · Greater availability...

  Experience the future. NOW. Driven by the thought “Don’t tell me, SHOW ME!”, Microsoft brings you a complimentary annual event that allows you to explore first-hand cutting-edge and amazing Microsoft technology in action. Discover a theme park...

  The product team has just put together the following Linked In discussion groups, so be sure to join them to keep updated on Microsoft SQL Server appliances, and allows you to network with your peers about these appliances. Get your questions answered...

Heading over to the US for the largest SQL Server conference in the world!!! – the SQL PASS Summit - http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2011/ . I will keep you updated about the announcements made at the event - there are some great ones so stay tuned. Hope...

Use this flowchart to better understand how Excel Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 refreshes data or to troubleshoot data connection errors from Excel Services. The Excel Services Data Refresh Flowchart shows the sequence of actions performed...

I should have added one more thing and its FREE . If this is music to your ears then lock down the Tuesday, 27th September 2011 evening (5:30pm – 7:30pm) to come out to the recently re-furbished Microsoft Sydney offices – 1 Epping Rd, North Ryde. Details...

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I see this occur quite often and even I keep on repeating this mistake – when it comes to setting up the Report Server URL and Report URL properties for a Reporting Services based report (in SharePoint integrated mode) in Performance Point Services Dashboard...

Since the release of SQL Server Denali CTP3 I have been talking more and more to customers and partners about this release and one of its great new capability called AlwaysOn. The AlwaysOn feature basically provides an easy way for DBAs to enable High...