Stairway to SSAS Tabular Level 1: Why use Analysis Services (2020-05-13)

 SQLServerCentral Newsletter for May 13, 2020 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [SQL Server Central]( Featured Contents - [Stairway to SSAS Tabular Level 1: Why use Analysis Services]( - [The Underground Map of SQL Monitor]( - [Introduction to Azure SQL Database Instance Pools]( - [Free eBook: Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Cool Stuff in Snowflake – Part 12: IS DISTINCT FROM]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Clustered Index Key – Natural or Surrogate?]( Question of the Day - [Counting the Groups in R]( The Voice of the DBA  Daily Coping Tip Be grateful for the little things, even in difficult times. I also have [a thread at SQLServerCentral]( dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.  For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from [The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar](. My items will be on [my blog](, feel free to share yours. Smarter Design I have build a lot of PowerPoint decks over the years. Many of presentations, some for explaining a process, and once in awhile, I use it to create an image that's simple, but beyond my skills. Even putting some geometric shapes together in a clean, aligned manner, is something I've found easier to do in PowerPoint than Paint.Net. Some of you may have noticed the PowerPoint Design Ideas that pop up when you create a new slide. At first I didn't pay much attention, but I've started to take advantage of the ideas at times. The way that slides are put together is often much more visually appealing than any I'd think of by myself. Sometimes I take an idea and modify it slightly. At first I thought most of these were just standard templates, but Microsoft is starting to use more ML in the examples that pop up on the side. There's a good [AI Show]( episode at [the bottom of this post]( that explains some of what they do. From image recognition to intelligent cropping to natural language processing, they are finding ways to make better design ideas available. the episode is only minutes and worth watching if you want to know more about how they use technology in their recommendations. To me, this is a good example of how technology and humans work together. Someone needs to come up with some good designs, based on certain situations. Users then provide them feedback on if they're useful or not, and they can modify things. I even learned how to change the icons for the designs if I don't quite like them. My changes (and yours) get fed back to new models as training for the future. Would this make all presentations look alike? I think there is some danger here that we start to coalesce into certain patterns. We might see lots of slides with dates become timelines, but they won't be exactly the same, and there are different ideas based on content. Even the words in the titles. I made two slides, same content with a different title and I got slightly different recommendations. I think AI and ML have good futures, but not as the sole decision makers for how to react to data. Instead, I think humans constantly providing feedback, input into models, changing weights, and yes, helping with more complex things like design, will improve the results that more of us get from our tools. Steve Jones - SSC Editor [Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums](   Featured Contents [Stairway to SSAS Tabular]( [Stairway to SSAS Tabular Level 1: Why use Analysis Services]( Thomas LeBlanc from SQLServerCentral.com In this first level of the SSAS Tabular stairway, learn the benefits of implementing an SSAS solution. [The Underground Map of SQL Monitor]( Additional Articles from Redgate The "metro map" of SQL Monitor, with sightseeing tips and essential stops along every line.... [Introduction to Azure SQL Database Instance Pools]( Additional Articles from Database Journal In one of the article, Considerations for Deploying Azure SQL Database Managed Instances, recently published on this site, basic characteristics of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance were described. Its biggest selling points include nearly full compatibility with on-premises SQL Server deployments, support for SQL Server Agent, and additional security associated with its Azure virtual network integration. [Free eBook: Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer]( Press Release from SQLServerCentral.com This free eBook from Redgate Software will take you from the fundamentals of Statistics, Cost Estimation, Index Selection, and the Execution Engine, and guide you through the inner workings of the Query Optimization process, and throws in a pragmatic look at Parameterization and Hints along the way. From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [Cool Stuff in Snowflake – Part 12: IS DISTINCT FROM]( Koen Verbeeck from Koen Verbeeck I’m doing a little series on some of the nice features/capabilities in Snowflake (the cloud data warehouse). In each part, I’ll highlight something that I think it’s interesting enough to share.... From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [Clustered Index Key – Natural or Surrogate?]( Brahmanand Shukla from SQL Server Carpenter This article will follow a practical approach to choose the right candidate for clustered index. It'll investigate through the best practices recommended for clustered index, with the help of...   Question of the Day Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):  Counting the Groups in R I have this dataframe in R: > head(sales) Date Day Month Year Customer_Age Age_Group Customer_Gender 1 2013-11-26 26 November 2013 19 Youth (<25) M 2 2015-11-26 26 November 2015 19 Youth (<25) M 3 2014-03-23 23 March 2014 49 Adults (35-64) M 4 2016-03-23 23 March 2016 49 Adults (35-64) M 5 2014-05-15 15 May 2014 47 Adults (35-64) F 6 2016-05-15 15 May 2016 47 Adults (35-64) F I want to get a count of the distribution of rows by Age_Group. What function should I call? Think you know the answer? [Click here]( and find out if you are right.    Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor) Tempdb Default Size I've installed SQL Server 2017 with all the defaults (clicking next, next, next where I can). I took the recommendations for tempdb. This gave me 8 data files. If I fill up a single file, what is the amount of growth that will take place? Answer: 64MB Explanation: The default auto growth for each file is 64MB. Ref: tempdb database - [Discuss this question and answer on the forums](    Database Pros Who Need Your Help Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, [visit the forums](. --------------------------------------------------------------- SQL Server 2017 - Administration [Very odd behavior with parameter sniffing, overall poor performance post CU19]( - Hey all, Seeing something very strange. Overall performance on a SQL 2017 instance has dramatically worsen since CU19 was installed. Have historical records on nightly processing that shows that post CU19, report execution times went through the roof. One in specific, used to run consecutively in 1 minute. After CU19, it jumped up to 10 […] [Replication]( - I am thinking to configure Always on or replication from two databases to 1 single database for reporting and consolidating the dbs . Current prod is on sql 2016 and planning to configure the reporting server with SQL 2017 and configure Always on between SQL 2016 primary and SQL 2017 secondary. My understanding is lower […] [Connection time out SQL 2017]( - Hi Team, I am getting this message while I try to connect to a new SQL Sever 2017 server : Connection Timeout Expired. The timeout period elapsed while attempting to consume the pre-login handshake acknowledgement. This could be because the pre-login handshake failed or the server was unable to respond back in time. The duration […] SQL Server 2016 - Administration [Keep track of who accessed\modified the database except application user\login]( - Hi, SQL version: sqlserver2016 standard . I am looking to keep track of the details for audit purpose who access to database, from which machine , and data modifications. event_time Client Machine Name\IP UserName\Loginname server_instance_name database_name schema_name object_name SQL statement Any help here ? Thanks.   [AD group access - persists after removed?]( - I have a strange problem regarding an Active Directory group that has access to a database. We have a AD group called APP_OP that was created a long time ago to give users access to specific databases used by an in-house application. So basically we created the group as a login on the server and […] [What Are Your Thoughts on Sections 302, 401, and 409 regarding Data Integrity]( - DELETED. [SQL Server Native client]( - Hi, Installed SQL Server2016 standard on Windows server2016 Standard, Later i observed that SQL Server2012 Native Clients also installed along with that. Is it safe to uninstall ? do i need to keep as it is ? Thanks. SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL [Import documents Saved in AccessDB into SQL server]( - I wonder if anyone has tried to do this Having been asked to examine the ability to upscale a database from the AccessDB one of our teams had developed I started looking at the information in it In one of the columns they have stored "Supporting Documentation" such as word documents and emails with a […] SQL Server 2019 - Administration [Cannot create cloud witness for Windows cluster on Azure]( - All Windows firewalls are actually turned off. The Windows Cluster is the 1st step for my SQL AG setup but can't make it work. Any suggestions? Where else can I check? SQL Server 2019 - Development [MacOs User connection to SQL Server from Excel]( - We have a financial reporting tool , which gets data from SQL server via stored procedure and works fine on Windows computers. (Please forgive me if I am using the wrong terms in the next few lines, I am neither IT nor native speaker): If they work on a Windows netbook, they logon on their […] Reporting Services [Performance Dashboard and Server Dashboard]( - Hello All,  I am wondering if anyone has been able to successfully recreate or find the RDL file for the Server Dashboard? I have been able to publish the Performance Reports Dashboard but upper management wants to only see what the server dashboard has to offer. This is a add-on that Microsoft allows you […] [Date parameter input in UK format but at run-time changes to US format]( - Hi all I'm sure I've found a solution to this problem before but it may just have been updating the Language on the report to en-GB, which I've done on this report. I have a fetchxml report (yes I know...) where processingdate <= @ProcessingDate. The parameter input is in UK format but whilst running it's […] SQLServerCentral.com Website Issues [User Forum is Terrible]( - Today is not the first time I've had problems with the SQL Server Central forums since they were changed (not sure how long its been).  The new/current view is like a dumbed down view of a more complex user forum. There also is no FAQ or HOW-TO for the forum at least not that i […] COVID-19 Pandemic [Daily Coping 6 May 2020]( - Today’s tip is take a step towards one of your life goals, however small. My thoughts: Sarbanes-Oxley [What Are Your Thoughts on Sections 302, 401, and 409 regarding Data Integrity]( - MOVED TO SQL 2016 Administration section   [RSS Feed]([Twitter]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. To be removed from this list, please click [here](. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. 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