Thank you to all the troopers who attended my really-early-morning-cold-and-snowy session at SQLSaturday#65 in Vancouver, BC. It was such a great event; thanks to all volunteers, sponsors, speakers and organizers (kudos to Scott Stauffer (blog | twitter) .. Thanks to Todd McDermid (blog | twitter) too for helping me give out swags during my session, and thanks for the great powerpoint slide decks which I’ve used in 2 SQLSaturdays now!

As promised, here are the SQLSaturday#65 presentation materials for SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 Reporting Services from the Ground Up

Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) has a few pictures of the event

Sample Reports (pdfs)

Report with different visualization components (data bar, sparkline, indicator, gauge, chart)

Report with drilldown, barcode, gauge

Report using map (from ESRI shapefile for Canada) and Bing Maps layer

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Today has been quite an eventful day for me, feels like a mishmash of stuff happened today. Definitely worth a blog post.

Here are some of the things I learned and did today.

And man it amazes me how many smart smart helpful people are out there

Service Broker

I possibly might need to work on SQL Server Service Broker. I think this might be the right tool for a project, but I need to be certain so I need to give it a test drive.

Thanks to Aaron Bertrand (blog | twitter) for pointing me to these excellent excellent resources on SQL Server Broker.

http://mrdenny.com

http://http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/tag/service-broker/

http://rusanu.com

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Just wanted to share some common “tips” or “tricks” I find myself using over and over again when creating reports.

I think I’ve had this draft for a while, and just never was able to publish it because things got so busy. Anyway, I will just publish in parts. Better late (and something) than never (and nothing!)

Common Report Tasks

Common page headers and footers

Report (reportname) generated by DOMAIN/User on 02/03/2010 4:51:03 PM
="Report (" & Globals!ReportName & ") generated by " & User!UserID & " on " & Globals.ExecutionTime"

Page X of Y
="Page " & Globals!PageNumber & " of " & Globals!TotalPages

If you have start and end date parameters, and want to display them in your header or footer, with date formatted as MMM dd, YYYY
="Report Details from " & Format(Parameters!StartDate.Value, "MMM dd, yyyy") & " to " & Format(Parameters!EndDate.Value, "MMM dd, yyyy")

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Ebook

Free ebook from Microsoft Press: Introducing SQL Server 2008 R2

Download from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_press/archive/2010/04/14/free-ebook-introducing-microsoft-sql-server-2008-r2.aspx

Training Kit

New updated version of SQL Server 2008 R2 Training Kit is out, and is full of awesome SSRS goodies (hands on labs, tutorials, presentations, and videos).

Download from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=fffaad6a-0153-4d41-b289-a3ed1d637c0d

These two books are great, and they almost never leave my desk. I’ve been reading them nonstop.

Prologika Press. Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services by Teo Lachev

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes: for Designing Expert Reports by Paul Turley and Robert M. Bruckner

Excellent Free Ebooks from RedGate

SQL Server eBook Selection
1. Protecting SQL Server Data by John Magnabosco
2. The Art of High Performance SQL by Grant Fritchey
3. The Art of XSD by Jacob Sebastian
4. Two Minute SQL Server Stumpers Vol. 5

DBA Ebooks Bundle
1. Mastering SQL Server Profiler
2. Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server 2008
3. Brad McGehee’s DBA Best Practices
4. How to Become an Exceptional DBA (2nd edition)
5. SQL Server Tacklebox

The Best of Simple Talk .NET
1. The Best of Simple Talk .NET – Jit N’ Run vol.2

You can download them from this link

Download PDF file

I typically use SQL Server VMs for my development and administration classes. I want the students to have full autonomy over the machines they are using, so that they can try out different features and configurations without worrying about wrecking a whole lab machine.

This tutorial steps the students through how to create and configure their own standalone SQL Server VMs. We will be using:

· VMWare Server

· Windows Server 2008

· SQL Server 2008

Terms

A few terms to familiarize yourselves with before we start:

Prep Work

1. Download and install VMWare Server (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/)

You will need to register, and get the serial number for your free VMWare Server. Once it’s installed, you should have a link to VMWare Server Home Page from your Start > Programs menu.

2. Get your media for :

· your operating system (ex Windows Server 2008)

· SQL Server (up to you which version you want to install)

or better yet, or if you have MSDN/MSDNAA/Technet Subscriptions, download it from the Microsoft Site. If there is an option to download an .iso file, download the .iso file. Otherwise you will need to create this yourself later.

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I did a presentation today for VANPASS on PowerShell and SQL Server – thank you to those who attended! It was a great lively crowd Thanks to Idera too – for the freebies – and to Black Ninja Software for the pizza and pop!

Here are the files as promised: VANPASS – SQL Server and PowerShell – Donabel Santos

The zipped file contains the presentation and all of the samples (ones that I demo’d, and ones I didn’t have time to demo). The demos are:

• Demo 01 – Common PowerShell Tasks – Complete.PS1
• Demo 02 – PowerShell Basics – Complete.PS1
• Demo 03a – SQL Server 2008 Mini Shell – Complete.PS1
• Demo 03b – Server and Database Properties.PS1
• Demo 03c – SQL Server Services and Jobs.PS1
• Demo 03d – Scripting SQL Server Objects.PS1
• Demo 03e – Searching for Objects.PS1
• Demo 03f – Basic DDL and DML Import.PS1
• Demo 03f – Basic DML.PS1
• Demo 03g – Backup and Restore.PS1
• Demo 04 – SQL Server PSX – Complete.PS1
• Demo 05 – SQL Server PSSnapin – Complete.PS1
• Demo – SSIS.PS1
• Demo – SSRS.PS1
• Out-Report from Chad Miller

I have used a lot of resources when I was creating all these samples, and I have tried to enumerate them in my presentation. And I also just realized I had a lot of samples and was only able to get through 2/3 of them.

I enjoy presenting at VANPASS, it is always a great crowd. Please feel free to drop me a line, or comment on my blog, or message me on twitter(sqlbelle) – if you have other SQL Server PowerShell questions, or if you had questions at the presentation that I wasn’t able to address.

Thanks to Richard Baumet and Scott Stauffer for inviting me to speak.
And thanks to Idera too – I love using your PowerShell Plus!