I quickly grabbed the opportunity when I had the chance to become a Friend Of Redgate. I had received a License for Red Gate Toolbelt. Tools such as the SQL Prompt (now in version 4) are built to make developers’ life easier. This holds true to me as I work/train on/for SQL Server 2000 DTS conversion to SQL Server SSIS 2008.
The DTS-SSIS conversion job itself is cumbersome, so I am glad that I have some tools to make the learning curve easier. So far I am finding the SQL Prompt Code Snippet an excellent tool in many tasks.
I have provided a screen capture below to show the SQL Prompt Snippet feature in action:
By the way, the code snippet sample in the picture is the code to find the name and text of stored Procedures.
The Professional Association For SQL Server (PASS) Election Committee needs to review its nomination process. It needs to be more transparent so the members can make better decision as to who to choose to be in the Board of Directors. The future of PASS is in the hands of this team. What path the organization decides to tackle will be decided upon by them.
The interview of Brent Ozar with one of the candidates has opened more than the door to a one man’s mind. It has rather exposed what could be lying beneath the organization goals for the future. Obviously the nomination of this gentleman to the Board of Directors bespeaks of something beyond the obvious. The PASS as an organization is now trying to cross some demarcation which is currently not discernible. We could only smell some hints. You all know by now that I am talking about Matt Morollo (Twitter) who is nominated to the Board of Directors of PASS. This gentleman’s position is very clear in the syllogism he posted at his Twitter stream: “A core charter for PASS is about growth; MEDIA & Marketing is the solution.” On which basis did he draw that conclusion from? Do growth and media go hand in hand? What aspect of growth is he trying to consider? Has there been a “problem” pertaining to growth of the organization that “media & marketing” can solve?
Any organization similar to the structure of the PASS organization needs some sort of marketing. Media plays an important role in the promotion of the organization’s objectives. But is it right to let marketing and media drive the growth?
Did anyone conduct a study beforehand that will attest Mr. Morollo’s notion, that, indeed, “media & marketing will drive growth of PASS”? When you find “media & marketing” and “growth” in a single sentence, it is very difficult to elicit the meaning it is trying to convey. Is PASS trying to become a “Media Company”? Or is it attempting to reinvent itself as B2B Organization?
PASS has been running successful events. I am not sure if injecting “Media Organization Philosophy” is the right thing to do to advance PASS fundamental principles of “helping its members Connect, Share, and Learn“.
It is true that the “core charter for PASS is about growth”; but the context of that growth must be spelled out beyond media and marketing. The pursuit of Growth that the organization is striving for should only be driven by its fundamental ideals:
Help Members to Connect
Connection is the lifeblood of any organization. It is the principle that binds the individuals together to form one body. Without this connection the organization will not thrive. The organization must keep all channels of communication open to maintain connection. Social networks and other tools provide opportunities for such communication to take place. All members must be engaged in some form of communication whether in blog, twitter, or any other means. This also means reaching out to people who are not aware of the existence of the organization. So is this where “media” comes in? I’d say, No. Conducting quality events like Code Camps, SQLSaturdays, User Group Meetings, and the like will make this happen more effectively than spamming people with meaningless scribbles and annoying graphics such as the event flyers that media companies send for conferences.
Help Members to Share
If connection is the lifeblood of any organization, the passion to help one another is the vitality that secure the foundation of the organization. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so they say. That wholeness is guaranteed as long as the individuals are always willing to share in any way that contributes to the attainment of the goals of the organization. Sharing in the context of the PASS organization does not only connote sharing of technical knowledge among its members. Sharing must be encouraged to go all out beyond the walls of the organization. SQL Server as a technology has evolved and is evolving toward advancement. This progress has caught significant attentions in the database industry. Reaching out to as many people as possible in every opportunity is an important ingredient to growth. Share knowledge to those who need it and create the opportunity of needing such knowledge.
Help Members to Learn
The beckon of PASS is its ability to provide quality and proper learning to its members. There is always that need to connect when there is always the need to learn. This is how civilization has thrived and advanced. It is natural for individuals to seek some sort of knowledge. This characteristics happen to be natural to SQL Professionals as well. Challenges in the workplaces push one to seek solutions; and, the process necessitates the need to learn. What is better place to look for answers or solutions than in a group of people sharing common needs, common values, and common goals.
Conclusion
These three primordial principles define the very existence of the Professional Organization for SQL Server. The core charter of the organization is about growth; but growth is not the end itself. PASS is an organic group sustained by the cohesion of real human relationships and driven by the need to learn and the spirit of sharing. When these elements are factored in, “media and marketing” becomes irrelevant.
Related Posts By other PASS Members:
“Its the Transparency, Stupid” by Chuck Boyce (Twitter | Blog)
“All aTwitter About PASS Nominations” by Stuart Ainsworth (Twitter | Blog)
Follow me at Twitter – @MarlonRibunal
Read “About PASS” here. Download the PASS Bylaws here (Thanks to Stuart for the link)
These are some of the few things I’ve learned. These are very basic but it should save some newbies some time specially when dealing with Flat file sources and stored procedures.
Data Type on Text File
If you have a NVARCHAR column in your target table you have to set the data type of your source column to UNICODE STRING [DT_WSTR]. Don’t forget to adjust the data width accordingly to avoid “Truncation issue” in the execution.
I have set the columns that go to a DATETIME data type with DATABASE TIMESTAMP [DT_DBTIMESTAMP]. That works for me.
Stored Procedure Input Variable
This should be a non-issue because this is easy to figure out; but, this is a helpful tip to a newbie nonetheless.
When executing a parameterized stored procedure in a SQL TASK with OLE DB Destination (suppose we have a stored procedure with two variables):
Syntax will be “EXEC sp_MyStoredProc ?, ?” (without the quotes, of course). Then you create User Variables with appropriate data types & values at the Package Level (I guess this is called “Global Variables” in DTS). The next step is to map those variables inside the SQL TASK.
That is all. More notes to come.
I started to jot down notes in a notebook – I mean the old school notebook. I have other means to do
this digitally but I decided to do it this way to have the feel of real note-taking (Yes, I have a delicious account and I haven’t fully utilized my evernote account). A small composition notebook that I can keep in my pocket and can take wherever I go is just what I need. From time to time, I will share here the “notes” that I have written. I consider these as “technical notes” although most people would consider them junk. I would like to point out that the notes that I record in my notebook may be verbatim of any article. So, please don’t sue me if you see an exact copy of your sentences or paragraphs in these “notes”. I don’t have any particular style or technique of jotting down notes.
- SQL Server 2000 DTS packages that are stored in Visual Basic files cannot be migrated to SSIS 2008
- Dtexec – Command-line utility to execute packages from comman prompt.
- User Accounts needed when viewing, modifying, scheduling, or editing an Integrations Services package:
- User Account of the package owner; or,
- Account with SYSADMIN role on the server on which the package is actually stored
- Shortcut command to the SQL Server Import & Export Wizard (DTS to SSIS) – “dtswizard”
- SQL Server 2000 DTS packages can still run in the SQL Server 2008 environment (legacy mode)
- In the future version of SQL Server, DTS will be deprecated and not supported
- SQL Partition Management – Partitioning Tool. Use case of this tool is found in @sqlfool’s blog
- Microsoft SQL Server Community Samples: Integration Services
I am a Friend of Red Gate
Software companies reach out to people or prospects in more ways than one. Cold-calling is a thing of the past. “Webvertisements” and other media of advertising have become commonplace. The goals of any software vendor are focused in two-fold pursuit: To give benefits to the customers through services or products on one hand and profit on the other. It should be in that order – customers come first before profit.
Customer First Before Profit
Red Gate Software fully understands this rule. They reach out beyond their walls and provide the community the chance to appreciate the software that they create without the usual limitations such as “trial period” or paid developer versions of the product. This is where the Red Gate’s program “Friends Of Red Gate” comes in the picture. “The purpose of the program is to give valued people in the community the chance to use and review Red Gate’s tools, allowing them to become better informed about the capabilities of the products and, therefore, able to help others who are having problems which could be solved using Red Gate’s tools.“
Communicating Better Information
The keyword here is better information. This is fair game and the advantages weigh more on the customers’ side. Product information should not be communicated via three-page whitepapers loaded with highfalutin technical terms and descriptions of the product. Study cases that are meant to highlight features and usability of the product are oftentimes biased. I am just saying that because that is how it seems to me.
Unconstrained Product Evaluation
The biggest benefit that the “Friends of Red Gate” program delivers is the offer of an unrestricted product evaluation. Trial Product Period does not prove long term usability of the product. One can have a better look and feel of the product if he is free to evaluate without restrictions. I have just repeated that and I can’t stress that enough.
Community Contribution and Responsibility
Customers and prospects should be given the right and honest information they need – no holds barred. This is the paramount responsibility of the “Friends Of Red Gate”. The mission is not to back-scratch Red Gate but to use and evaluate their products in their intended use and provide the results to the community. As Friends of Red Gate, we are expected to render objective opinion and appraisal of the product.
Friend Of Red Gate Benefit
I received a License of the SQL Toolbelt bundle as a member of the Friends of Red Gate Program. Our main purpose is to communicate with the community the problems that are solved by using Red Gate’s tools. One example of this is the blog post of K. Brian Kelley (Blog | Twitter) about Red Gate’s SQL Data Generator. This is what I am looking forward to also. I expect that becoming a “Friend Of Red Gate” will make me more efficient in training and learning more about SQL Server and more solid in gaining knowledge to share with the community.
More information on the “Friends Of Red Gate” program is found in in Red Gate’s community relations page. For inquiries and application or any questions related to the program send email to friends [at] red-gate [dot] com.
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Free Book Download – How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, The Little Book of Semaphores, and more.
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This post will discuss some of the issues that NULL values cause inside SQL Server Integration Services when you're not proactively handling them. The typical indication of a rampant NULL is the dreaded DTS_E_INDUCEDTRANSFORMFAILUREONERROR message.
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In SQL Server 2005, a feature was introduced that was hardly noticed, but which might make a great difference to anyone doing queries involving temporal data. For anyone doing Data Warehousing, timetabling, or time-based pricing, this could speed up your queries considerably. Who better to introduce this than Query Optimizer expert, Fabiano Amorim?
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A multi-part series on Developing a Control Flow Task for SQL Server Integration Services
Quest Software has come out with another edition of Twitter t-shirt with the #UrADBAif hashtag theme. The previous tweet-shirt stirred up some interesting strong opinion for and against the tweet printed on the shirt. All this was documented in Colin Stasiuk’s blog post. This time Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter) and Michelle Ufford (Blog | Twitter) made sure that the tweet printed on the shirt is kind of neutral. It is not offensive, unless fans of John Grisham find it otherwise.
I got this as a swag from attending Quest Software’s Spend A Day With Experts. Aside from the t-shirt, I also received a couple of SQLServerPedia stickers, SQL Server Management Studio Shortcut Keys, SQL Server 2005 Quick Reference Guide System Stored Procedure poster, SQL Server Dynamic Management Views poster, a publication of “SQL Server Consolidation”, and, most importantly, the video-cd of the September 10, 2009 seminar (Topics include: “Virtualizing SQL Server”,”SSRS for DBAs”, & “Perfmon & Profiler 101″).
The “Execution Plans” mentioned is referring to the book of Grant Fritchey (Blog | Twitter) titled “Dissecting SQL Server Execution Plans” (Download Free | Buy At Amazon)
