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

• Design of a SQL Server 2008 R2 Geo-Cluster for a state agency with nodes over 150km apart
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Cluster successfully implemented for a law enforcement agency
• Successfully implemented the first phase of a SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence project with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010
• Implemented a SQL Server 2008 R2 BI POC for students from K-12 enabling individual learning programs to be tailored to the individual students

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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Kerberos authentication in SSRS

Kerberos and the dreaded 'double hop' is often seen as a dark art. A new white paper has been released which describes how to configure and troubleshoot a Reporting Services environment to use Kerberos authentication. This white paper can be found here.

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Free Brisbane SQL Server Breakfast

WARDY IT Solutions is running a Free SQL Server breakfast in Brisbane on Thursday the 3rd of June. This Breakfast will show how SQL Server 2008 R2 can be used to easily deliver maps and spatial data visualization. In this presentation you will see how to combine multiple datasets using map layers including local and state boundaries. For more details and to register for this event email contact@wardyit.com.

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Data-tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2

Microsoft’s investment in application and multi-server management is designed to reduce the complexity with developing, deploying, and managing database applications. A core concept of application and multi-server management in SQL Server is the data-tier application (DAC). A white paper that describes how this new unit of deployment can be implemented can be found here.

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SQL Azure vs. SQL Server

As more and more people start to look into SQL Azure the question is bound to pop-up regarding the differences between the on premise and off premise solution. A white paper has been released that compares the SQL Azure Database with SQL Server in terms of logical administration vs. physical administration, provisioning, Transact-SQL support, data storage, SSIS, along with other features and capabilities. This white paper can be found here.

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New Version of BIDS Helper

If you are working with Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) and you aren't using BIDS Helper then stop what you are doing and download it now. BIDS Helper is a Visual Studio.Net add-in with features that extend and enhance the functionality of the SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. BIDS Helper can be downloaded from here.

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Hobart SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch

To celebrate the launch of SQL Server 2008 R2, WARDY IT Solutions is proud to announce that they will be delivering the first SQL Server 2008 R2 workshops in Tasmania. This workshop will be a free 1/2 day event. To find out more and register for this event refer to 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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SQL Server 2008 R2 Core Editions by Scenario

SQL Server 2008 R2, the new release of SQL Server introduces two new premium editions to continue to deliver on the growing demands of large scale datacenters and data warehouses and advanced BI customers. As a result the features by edition have changed. To find out more on thes changes by Core Edition refer to here.

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PowerPivot Technical Diagram

Because PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint involve many components from SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010, it is hard to identify what all of the key components that make up PowerPivot are. A Visio Diagram of how everything fits togther in one view can be found 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.

Something you may not know is that our Virtual DBA service 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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