Welcome to the December newsletter from Australia's leading SQL Server Consultants, Trainers and Business Intelligence specialists

Happy Reading & Best Wishes for the New Year

Peter Ward

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Denali Hotlaps

SQL Server Denali is the codename for the next release of SQL Server. WARDY IT Solutions are proud to provide the first opportunity in Australia to explore the feature in the next release of SQL Server. The Hotlap will show how the changes in this release of SQL Server will improve database operations, developer efficiency and enable self-service Business Intelligence solutions. By attending a Hotlap session you will also be in the running to win your own hot lap in a V8 Supercar. To register for these Denali Hotlap's refer to here.

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New Head Office

As the WARDY IT solutions team continues to expand we have outgrown our current premises. As a result from the 10th of January we will be relocating the Head Office of WARDY IT Solutions to 21 Quay Street, Brisbane. We will be moving into these new premises on the 10th of January. Make sure you keep an eye out for the open house in the new year. All of the existing contact details for WARDY IT Solutions will remain the same with the move.

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Analysis Services Roadmap

At the PASS 2010 conference there were two major announcements for the future of Business Intelligence in SQL Server. The first was the new ad hoc reporting and data visualization experience codenamed “Project Crescent”. The second was a new Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM) in Analysis Services. To find out more about this new semantic model refer to here.

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Out of the Box SQL Server Features

A new whitepaper has been released which showcases the features that are available out of the box (OTB) with SQL server versus other database platforms. It is interesting to compare what is available out of the box with SQL Server versus which feature other vendors only make available with the purchase of feature packs, options, or separate products. To find out more about this comparison refer to here.

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Microsoft Lifecycle Support Policy

One of the areas where there is a lot of confusion is the supportability of SQL Server Service Packs. One thing to be aware of is that when a service pack for a product hits its “end of life date” you must upgrade to a newer service pack otherwise you will get limited troubleshooting technical support from Microsoft unless you purchase a customer support agreement. For more details regarding this policy refer to here.

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SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 4

SQL Sever 2005 Service Pack 4 is now available for download. SQL Server 2005 SP4 includes SQL Server 2005 SP3 cumulative update 1 to 11. To download this service pack refer to here here.

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SQL Server Healthcheck

Does your SQL Server environment need a Healthcheck? The WARDY IT Solutions SQL Server Healthcheck is designed to review and verify the implementation of common SQL Server Best Practices. Our Database Healthcheck includes all the usage and administration aspects of a SQL Server database, ensuring that your SQL Servers are managed and operated well. Our approach is to analyse the total health of your SQL Server environment and highlight areas of concern, providing recommendations to improve the health and performance of your database environment. For more details on our SQL Server Healthcheck refer here.

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Don’t get NABbed

Almost a day does not go by when there is not another article about an organisation being unable to recover their data in a timely manner. Recently in Australia there have been a number of high profile examples of this including a Bank and an Airline. Not only do these incidents have a direct cost there is also an indirect cost associated with the damage to the organisations reputation. WARDY IT Solutions offers a number of services to ensure that your organisation is no on the front page of the paper due to people being unable to access their money or board their planes. To find out more about our SQL Server risk assessment contact us today here.

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Backup, Integrity Check and Index Optimization Scripts

Ola Hallengren has developed a solution to assist in performing backup, integrity check and index optimizations SQL Server 2005 and above. The solution is based on stored procedures, functions, sqlcmd and SQL Server Agent jobs. To find out more about this solution refer to here.

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SQL Server Virtual DBA

For the second year running our Virtual DBA was a finalist in the QLD Australian Computer Society Awards QLD ICT Awards for Service Delivery and Training. Virtual DBA was also nominated as a finalist for the QLD AIIA iAwards.

Something you may not know is that our Virtual DBA can be utilised for phone and email support. So, if your organisation just needs someone that they can call on for advice then why not use a Virtual DBA?

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