SSRS Empty Parameter

I stumbled upon this at work and wanted to share this to everyone. In SSRS create a parameter and give it Multi-Value. Keep the Default and Shared Values Null. When you are viewing the report you can copy and paste or hand-enter in a value to that parameter.

If you use a stored procedure parameter you can pass in multiple values with a ",". Try it out!

Fusion IO Drives

My work uses a Fusion IO drive, probably one of the lower current models, and we were thinking about possibly getting another.  I was checking out their website and found that they have an insane model called the IO Drive Octal, which holds 5.12 TB of disk space with read speeds of 6 GB/s!  That's insane!  I've seen ours do ridiculous things which was probably only on the scale of ~750 MB/s!

http://www.fusionio.com/products/iodriveoctal/

Migrating to SQL Server Azure

I have recently migrated a production database to SQL Azure. I used the following tool :

SQL Azure Migration Wizard v3.63

http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/

The reason why you have to use the wizard is because SQL Azure does not contain some syntax that normal SQL Server 2008 R2 contains. Unless you want to sit there and change every creation script that you made prior to Azure (like what I did for 2 days :( ) I suggest you use the tool. The migration wizard will go through your database and create "CREATE" and "INSERT" scripts for you. You are allowed to run the scripts manually or use the tool again to insert and create the database for you. I choose to do the entire path.

After the wizard was complete I logged back into the SQL Azure portal and copied the Data Source key and used it in our application and BAM it worked.

SQL Server "Denali" Crescent

Recently came back from a Users Group session and we were talking about SQL Server "Denali" Crescent.

SQL Server has changed the way people do every day reporting now. Crescent is packaged with SQL Server "Denali" and attaches to Sharepoint 2010. Crescent allows a user to simply click on a "report" and allows them to configure the report on the page itself. Crescent is taken from Excel 2010's PowerPivot and allows the user to create charts and graphs for reporting purposes. A very neat feature is that it allows the user to "copy" the report created in crescent and attach it to Excel or PowerPoint. Picture now the ability to have a storyboard (moving real time graphs) in a sales PowerPoint presentation. For more information I suggest you to google "Crescent" and watch the youtube presentation on the subject.

Albert

Tyler's Intro

Ok, so here goes my first post to the PC Slayers Tech Blog.  Albert and I have been consulting with each other regarding SQL and other technology related items, and recently I had the idea to create a technical blog that we could both author as a combined effort to share our knowledge.  I've been a lurker on the interwebz for most of my life, rarely leaving comments or posting any original content of my own, but now that I've grown in my skills I feel more comfortable to share my knowledge so that others can find it useful as well.

Most of the skills I've acquired have come from either teaching myself tricks to feed my need for optimizations and efficiencies or from searching the web as my source of guiding material.  I had to read and while I've browsed through some SQL and C# books, I've hated it so.  My background comes from taking Relational Databases and Java Programming undergrad classes at the University of North Florida.  I've had many jobs with Technical Support for the most part, but as my jobs grew in complexity I fell more into SQL and the related applications.

Some of my experiences I plan to share:

• I now have a good deal of experience with SQL Management Studio writing queries to analyze issues with configuration or data population.  
• I've worked a decent amount with Partitions, Fact Tables, Compression, Dynamic SQL etc.  
• I've worked with SQL Server Reporting Services to write ridiculously complex custom reports for clients, as well as internal reports.  
• I've worked with IIS 6.0 to setup and maintain websites.
• I've learned some really neat things in Microsoft Excel.

I'll be posting some of my tips and tricks and hopefully they'll be of use to people!

Helping out a beginner student in SQL

I recently was asked by a student that is currently taking a database class using SQL Server and he asked the following question.

"Can I multiply a percent (ex. 10%) to an existing column?"

SELECT (COLUMNNAME * 1.10) AS NEWCOLUMNNAME FROM TABLENAME