Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed- P10 ppt

For more information on PowerPivot, see Chapter 51, “Analysis Services.” New Reporting Services Features SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces a number of new features for Reporting Services.. A

sources PowerPivot for SharePoint extends SharePoint 2010 and Excel Services to add

server-side processing, collaboration, and document management support for the

PowerPivot workbooks that you publish to SharePoint Together, the PowerPivot client

add-in and server components provide an end-to-end solution that furthers business

intel-ligence data analysis for Excel users on the workstation and on SharePoint sites

For more information on PowerPivot, see Chapter 51, “Analysis Services.”

New Reporting Services Features

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces a number of new features for Reporting Services The

Reporting Services enhancements are probably the most significant aspect of the R2

release One of the key changes in SQL Server 2008 R2 is an updated version of the Report

Manager The SQL Server 2008 R2 Report Manager provides an improved user experience

via interface changes, including an updated color scheme and layout, in an effort to

provide easier navigation for managing report properties and Report Server items

Following are some of the key enhancements to Report Manager in R2:

An improved workflow for viewing and managing reports and Report Server items

through the use of a new drop-down menu to access various configuration options

for each report or Report Server item in a folder

Elimination of the need to render a report before accessing and configuring report

properties when in default view

Increased screen space for the Report Viewer when rendering reports

An updated Report Viewer toolbar, which includes some updates to the toolbar

con-trols, as well as the capability to export report data to an Atom service document

and data feeds

The set of new and enhanced features in SQL Server 2008 R2 for Reporting Services includes

Report parts—You can store these reusable report items on a Report Server or on a

SharePoint site that is integrated with a Report Server

Sparklines and data bars—These simple charts convey a lot of information in a

little space, often inline with text

Indicators—These minimal gauges convey the state of a single data value at a

glance Indicators can be used by themselves in dashboards or free-form reports

Calculation of aggregates of aggregates—You can now create expressions that

calculate an aggregate of an aggregate

Improved report pagination—Reporting Services provides more control over

report pagination including dynamic updating of page names and numbers when a

report is run, as well as disabling page breaks entirely

Map reports—Report Designer now provides a Map Wizard and Map Layer Wizard

so that you can add maps and map layers to your report to help visualize data

against a geographic background

Shared datasets—This Report Server feature can retrieve data from shared data

sources that connect to external data sources, providing a way to share a query to

help provide a consistent set of data for multiple reports

Cache refresh plans—These plans allow you to cache reports or shared dataset

query results on first use or from a schedule

Improved previewing of reports—Report Builder 3.0 provides a better preview

experience with the introduction of edit sessions that enable the reuse of cached

datasets when you are previewing reports, which allows reports to render more

quickly

For more information on designing and deploying reports using Reporting Services and

more information on the extensive set of new Reporting Services features in R2, see

Chapter 53, “SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.”

SQL Server 2008 Enhancements

In addition to the brand new features in SQL Server 2008, there are a number of

enhance-ments to existing features provided by SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 The

following sections provide an overview of the major enhancements

SQL Server Management Studio

In addition to the new SSMS features discussed previously, SSMS has also received a

number of enhancements in SQL Server 2008; you are now able to do the following:

Customize the columns displayed by the Object Explorer Details window

Display the properties of a selected item from Object Explorer Details at the bottom

of the window

View a color-coded status bar at the bottom of the window for Transact-SQL and

MDX code editors which provide information about the editor connection The

status bar changes color when a code editor opens multiple connections

Customize the tab name for items in the title bar of the code editor windows

Configure the number of rows returned when you open tables via the Object Browser

Create and manage plan guides via the Programmability folder in Object Browser

Dynamic Management Views

SQL Server 2008 adds five new dynamic management views to return memory-related

information about SQL Server:

sys.dm_os_memory_brokers—Returns information about memory brokers, the

components that track memory allocations

sys.dm_os_memory_nodes—Returns memory allocation information for memory

allocated through SQL Server Memory Manager

sys.dm_os_nodes—Returns information about SQL OS memory nodes, internal

structures of SQL OS that abstract hardware processor locality

sys.dm_os_process_memory—Returns complete information about memory

allo-cated to SQL Server process space

sys.dm_os_sys_memory—Describes the memory state for the operation system

In addition, the cpu_ticks_in_ms column in the sys.dm_os_sys_info dynamic

manage-ment view has been discontinued, and two new columns,

sqlserver_start_time_ms_ticks and sqlserver_start_time, have been added

Database Mirroring

SQL Server 2008 provides a number of enhancements to database mirroring, mostly

related to performance of database mirroring, including compression of the transaction

log records being streamed to the mirror database, asynchronous write-ahead on the

incoming log stream and read-ahead during the undo phase, and improved use of the log

send buffers For more information on database mirroring and the improvements, see

Chapter 20, “Database Mirroring.”

SQLCLR Enhancements

SQL Server 2008 extends the SQLCLR by extending the 8KB size limit for CLR user-defined

types and CLR user-defined aggregates, supporting the definition of ordered table-valued

functions, providing support for multiple input parameters for user-defined aggregates,

and including the option to define static methods as user-defined functions

For more information on the enhancements to SQL CLR, see Chapter 46, “Creating NET

CLR Objects in SQL Server 2008.”

Replication Enhancements

SQL Server 2008 introduces a number of usability and manageability enhancements for

peer-to-peer replication and the Replication Monitor

Peer-to-peer replication includes the following significant usability and manageability

improvements:

A new option, enabled by default, that allows the Distribution Agent to detect

conflicts during synchronization and to stop applying changes at the affected row

The capability to add nodes to a replication topology without quiescing the topology

The capability to configure a topology visually in the Configure Peer-to-Peer

Topology Wizard The Topology Viewer enables you to perform common

configura-tion tasks, such as adding new nodes, deleting nodes, and adding new connecconfigura-tions

between existing nodes

The Replication Monitor includes the following usability improvements:

Most of the Replication Monitor grids allow you to specify which columns to view,

sort by multiple columns, and filter rows in the grid based on column values

The Common Jobs tab for the Publisher node has been renamed to Agents

The single Warnings and Agents tab for the publication node has been split into

sep-arate Warnings and Agents tabs to emphasize the difference between administering

performance warnings and monitoring replication agents

For more information on configuring and using replication in SQL Server 2008, see

Chapter 19, “Replication.”

SQL Server Integration Services Enhancements

Integration Services in SQL Server 2008 received enhancements and improvements as well

Following are some of these enhancements:

Improvements in the parallel execution of data flow pipeline paths on

multiproces-sor systems, going beyond the SQL Server 2005 limit of two engines

A new script environment Visual Studio for Applications (VSA) has been replaced

with Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) VSTA allows the development of

scripts written on Visual C# and Visual Basic, providing support for the Script Task

and Script Component VSTA also supports debugging and adding managed

assem-blies to a script at design time

Increased performance and improved caching options for Lookup Transformations

Data profiling to improve data quality by identifying potential data quality problems

Support for the new Change Data Capture feature in SQL Server 2008, providing an

effective method for performing incremental data loads from source tables to data

marts and data warehouses

For more information on using SQL Server Integration Services in SQL Server 2008, see

Chapter 52, “SQL Server Integration Services.”

Service Broker Enhancements

SQL Server 2008 provides the following enhancements to Service Broker:

Support for conversation priorities This support allows administrators and

develop-ers to specify that messages for important Service Broker convdevelop-ersations are sent and

received before messages from less important conversations to ensure that

low-prior-ity work does not block higher-priorlow-prior-ity work

The new ssbdiagnose command-prompt utility to analyze and diagnose Service

Broker configurations and conversations

A new performance object and counters that report how often Service Broker dialogs

request transmission objects and how often inactive transmission objects are written

to work tables in tempdb

Support for Service Broker in SQL Server Management Studio via new Service Broker

Elements in Object Explorer

For more information on the new features and capabilities of Service Broker, see Chapter

49

Analysis Services Enhancements

SQL Server 2008 also introduces some new features and enhancements to Analysis

Services Following are some of the primary improvements:

A new Aggregation Designer makes it easier to browse and modify aggregation designs

Aggregation design and usage-based optimization wizards have been simplified

and enhanced

New AMO warning messages alert users when they depart from design best practices

or make logical errors in database design

Simplified and enhanced cube and dimension wizards help you create better cubes

and dimensions in fewer steps

A new Attribute Relationship designer makes it easier to browse and modify attribute

relationships

A new Key Columns dialog box makes editing key columns easier

Key columns can now be edited in the Properties panel

An updated Dimension Structure tab helps make modifying attributes and

hierar-chies easier

A new storage structure is available and performance has been enhanced in all

backup and restore scenarios

When creating a mining structure, you can now divide the data in the mining

struc-ture into training and testing sets

You can now attach filters to a mining model and apply the filter during both

train-ing and testtrain-ing Applytrain-ing a filter to the model lets you control the data used to train

the model and lets you more easily assess the performance of the model on subsets

of the data

Cross-validation is now available in the Mining Accuracy Chart view of the Data

Mining Designer

SQL Server 2008 supports the creation, management, and use of data mining models

from Microsoft Excel when you use the SQL Server 2008 Data Mining add-ins for

Office 2007

You are able to add aliases to columns in a mining model to make it easier to

under-stand column content and reference the column in DMX statements

For more information on the new features and capabilities of SQL Server Analysis Services

(SSAS), see Chapter 51

Installation Enhancements

Starting with SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1, you can now perform slipstream

installa-tions of SQL Server 2008 Slipstream is the integration of the original installation media

files with a service pack and/or a cumulative update so that they can be installed in a

single step

SQL Server 2008 also provides the capability to selectively uninstall cumulative updates

and/or service packs via the Programs and Features control panel

For more information on installing and upgrading SQL Server 2008, see Chapters 8,

“Installing SQL Server 2008,” and 9, “Upgrading to SQL Server 2008.”

Deprecated Features

In addition to the new and enhanced features in SQL Server 2008, it’s important to note

the features for which support has been discontinued Table 2.1 lists the

unsupported/deprecated features along with their replacements, if any

To help keep track of deprecated features so that you can identify potential future upgrade

and compatibility problems, SQL Server 2008 provides the SQL Server: Deprecated Features

performance counter and the Deprecation Announcement and Deprecation Final Support

event classes, which you can monitor via SQL Server Profiler or SQL Trace

TABLE 2.1 Deprecated Features in SQL Server 2008

DUMP and LOAD statements BACKUP and RESTORE

BACKUP LOG WITH NO_LOG and BACKUP LOG

WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY

None; however, changing the database to simple recovery clears the transaction log

sp_helpdevice sys.backupdevices catalog view

60, 65, and 70 compatibility levels Support is provided only for compatibility levels

80 and higher User groups (sp_addgroup,

sp_changegroup, sp_dropgroup,

sp_helpgroup)

Roles

Northwind and pubs databases AdventureWorks database

Summary

SQL Server 2008 provides a number of new and long-awaited features and enhancements

This chapter provides an overview of the new features and enhancements that ship with

SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 To learn more, refer to the other chapters

refer-enced here

However, before we get into covering the features and capabilities of SQL Server 2008 and

SQL Server 2008 R2, we’ll first take a look at some real-world production implementations

of SQL Server to give you an idea of what is possible with SQL Server in both the online

transaction processing (OLTP) world and in the decision support systems (DSS)/business

intelligence (BI) realms

Examples of SQL Server

Implementations

Application Terms OLTP Application Examples DSS Application Examples

As you will see in this chapter, companies use SQL Server

for many types of applications and on most tiers now Gone

are the days when you would second guess yourself

choos-ing to use SQL Server over a competchoos-ing database engine

(such as Oracle or DB2 on a UNIX platform) to ensure you

got optimal transactional throughput, high availability, and

the highest performance In fact, SQL Server outnumbers

both of these database vendors in installed sites globally

Microsoft SQL Server has arrived!

The SQL Server Unleashed team has gathered a few showcase

SQL Server–based applications to give you an example of

what is possible with SQL Server in both the online

transac-tion processing (OLTP) world and in the decision support

systems (DSS)/business intelligence (BI) realms Each

example in this chapter comes from real-life database

appli-cations running in production environments at major

orga-nizations around the world In general, all the examples in

this book come from our direct customer experiences We

often translate those real-life customer implementations

into AdventureWorks2008 or bigpubs2008 database terms so

that you can easily re-create them for your own use

This chapter describes two OLTP applications: one is a

tradi-tional ERP system using SQL Server as the database layer,

and the other is an online shopping system with shopping

carts and both high-availability and high-performance

requirements

On the DSS/BI side, this chapter presents a traditional conformed-dimension star schema

data warehouse implementation for a high-tech company and then shows you what this

looks like implemented as an online analytical processing (OLAP) cube created by Analysis

Services

Under the DSS/BI examples, this chapter describes a hybrid distributed reporting example

that uses multiple SQL Server technologies to get the most out of a complex application

environment in the healthcare industry

Application Terms

Online transaction processing, or OLTP, is a class of applications that facilitate and

manage transaction-oriented processing, typically for data entry, complex business

processes (such as order entry), and retrieval transactions The term transaction in the

context of computer or database transactions is a finite set of changes that are grouped

together and can be undone together if any one piece does not complete (or fails) Often,

however, we speak of transactions as a business “unit of work” that can span multiple

database transactions as one logical business transaction The term OLTP has also been

used to refer to processing in which the system responds immediately to user requests An

automated teller machine (ATM) application for a bank is a classic example of this type of

OLTP transaction

In many applications, efficient OLTP applications may depend on sophisticated

transac-tion management software and/or database optimizatransac-tion tactics to facilitate the processing

of large numbers of concurrent users and updates to an OLTP-oriented database In a

geographic-distributed database system, OLTP brokering programs are used to distribute

transaction processing among multiple computers on a network These days, central OLTP

is often underneath the covers and integrated into most service-oriented architectures

(SOAs) and exposed as web services that can be easily orchestrated for different application

functionality

Decision support systems (DSS) have been around since the late 1960s, beginning with

model-driven DSS and running the gamut of financial planning systems, spreadsheets,

and massive multidimensional databases more recently We speak of data warehouses, data

marts, executive information systems, OLAP cubes, and business intelligence when

refer-ring to DSS All enable complex decision support capabilities, multidimensional data

analysis, online analytical processing, business intelligence, spatial DSS, and complex

querying and reporting capabilities

DSS system categories are

Data analysis systems that support the manipulation, aggregation, and

transforma-tion of data for a specific task or purpose

Pure analysis information systems that enable a series of decision-oriented databases

and small models

Complex accounting and financial models that calculate and forecast behavior based

on business events and financial results

Predictive models that estimate the consequences of actions on the basis of

simula-tion models

Optimization models that provide insight and possible actions a business can take

by generating an optimal solution consistent with a series of constraints

Microsoft has the capability to fully address the first three types and is only now

ventur-ing into predictive and optimization modelventur-ing The examples in this chapter illustrate a

classic data warehouse (star schema/snowflake, multidimensional, measures/facts), a small

distributed data mart, and an OLAP cube

For each example in this chapter, we try to describe the overall purpose of the application,

the major use cases, and the technology and architecture on which they were deployed

Where appropriate, we might showcase a data model diagram, a relational schema, or a

distributed topology that gives you some insight into why the implementation was done a

specific way You are likely to recognize some use cases that may be the same in your

envi-ronment and therefore possibly apply the same techniques or solutions to serve you as

well

OLTP Application Examples

The following sections describe what the major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendor

SAP AG has implemented using SQL Server for its database layer

OLTP ERP Example

SAP business solutions are composed of a comprehensive range of products that empower

an enterprise with a flexible, end-to-end solution A critical challenge in implementing an

SAP solution is the selection of a data platform to deliver the advanced features and

capa-bilities needed to support the most demanding workloads The Microsoft SQL Server

data-base software (either SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2005) is the relational datadata-base

management system (RDBMS) of choice for deploying secure, reliable, highly available,

high-performing, and scalable SAP installations Plus, SQL Server high-availability features

can minimize downtime for any SAP implementation

The company’s flagship applications are the NetWeaver-based SAP ERP/Business Suites and

SAP R/3 industry solutions Since 1993, SAP and Microsoft have been working together to

provide a deeply integrated Microsoft platform with SAP solutions Microsoft is currently