It’s the time of the year again: the obligatory “how was the past year” blog post, combined with “what do I plan to do next year?”. I plan on keeping it quite short 🙂 2015 was awesome because: I got to speak on ITPROceed and SQLServerDays again, and it was great as always Power BI […]
Tag: sql server
Performance Tuning with sp_BlitzIndex
Just a small blog post about how I used sp_BlitzIndex for the first and how awesome that was. sp_BlitzIndex is one of the many free scripts you can get from the great team at Brent Ozar Unlimited. Recently I went to a client for a one day data warehouse performance tuning exercise. Because you only have […]
Presentation Design – Before and After
Recently I gave a session on the SQL Server Days about the new features for business intelligence in SQL Server 2016. I have always found that the design of the slide deck matters and this time I was fortunate enough to have the assistance of 356labs, a presentation design agency founded by SQL Server MVP […]
What’s new for BI in SQL 2016 – Session materials
SQL Server Days 2015 is over and it was a blast. Met a lot of people from the #sqlfamily, too many to mention, and I saw some interesting sessions. My favorites were David’s session about loading data faster and Catherine’s session about BIMLÂ (yes, both are related to SSIS). I gave a session on the new […]
Why I hate Pie Charts
The pie chart should be avoided at all costs. Why? you can only display a limited number of slices (although that doesn’t really stop people from creating pie charts with dozens of slices) they take up a lot of space the human brain cannot easily compare slices based on radial areas. We’re better in comparing […]
Reblog: The Magic Alt Button
SQLKover update: I love this trick! I use it daily, no kidding (except in weekends). Want to see it in live action? You can watch my MSSQLTips.com webcast on-demand where I demonstrate this trick. Start watching at around minute 38. Lately I have been using more and more the awesomeness of the Alt-button in SQL Server […]
The SSDT Evolution
When you are developing for the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack, you always needed Visual Studio for your business intelligence (SSIS, SSAS & SSRS) projects. If you have a full blown Visual Studio installation, you needed the BI templates; if you didn’t have Visual Studio (or the right version), you would install a shell that could […]
Reblog: How I prepared myself for the MCSE certification
SQLKover update: this was one of the most popular posts on my old blog. It’s quite old now and SQL 2014 content has been added to some of the exams. Nonetheless, a lot of it is still valid today. Last week (this is a repost, so not actually last week but over 2 years ago)Â I […]
My favourite books
As I mentioned in the blog post Speaking at SQL Server Days 2015, I’ll be giving a session at the Belgian SQL Server Days. There is a Speaker in the Spotlight section on the site, where a speaker can introduce him/her self by answering a simple survey. One of the questions is “Which SQL Server […]
Reblog: What’s the deal with Excel and SSIS?
SQLKover update: When I read this old blog post of mine, all I can think about is: Power Query to the rescue! When it comes to importing data from an Excel sheet with SSIS, Excel has quite a reputation. And not a terribly good one. Well deserved, to be honest, because numerous issues can rise […]