BI Dutch - new BI Community in Holland

Johan van der Kooij, Dutch blogger on (MS) Business Intelligence and a long time biTunes fan :-) started a new BI Community in Holland. The blog on bidutch.nl contains quite a few interesting posts in Dutch. You can join the community via the Linked Group on http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/46641.

SQL Server 2008 Top 10 Features

Last week I presented my personal top 10 of new Features in SQL Server 2008 on the Community Day.

Here's the list

1. Backup Compression
2. PowerShell
3. Policy Based Mgmt
4. Multi Server Mgmt
5. Resource Governor
6. Change Data Capture
7. Data Profiling
8. AS DMVs
9. Report Builder 2.0
10. New stuff in SQL Server Management Studio (RC0)

The session was recorded and is now available on Chopsticks.




Werner Geuens gave an excellent presentation on the new datatypes in SQL Server 2008. This is also available on Chopsticks.



The Community Day was again a big success. Looking forward to next year!!!

Speaking at Community Day

The Belgian community has a very strong reputation internationally with many individuals making their mark in their fields of expertise. Lots of individuals, just like you, are hungry for more information about the many Microsoft products and technologies. In addition to the technical information, there is also very often the need to just socialize with other persons within the same domain of expertise. The many user groups that were started the last couple of years are doing a great job trying to address these needs with monthly meetings.

Eight of them, Belgian Dynamics Community, Biwug, IT-Talks, Pro-Exchange, SCUG, SQLUG, Visug, Winsec, and XNAbug have decided to combine their efforts again to organize another joint-event just before summer starts. So if you are eager to learn, get answers to your questions and meet your peers, come and join us at the premises of SemCom in Keerbergen on Thursday, the 26th of June 2008.

SQLUG.BE has two session slots. Werner Geuens will talk about the new datatypes in SQL Server 2008 and I will give an overview of my personal top 10 new features in SQL Server 2008.

The full agenda is available online. This is a free event, but registration is required. Looking forward to see you there.

Speaking at Community Day

On Thursday I will be presenting on the first Belgian Community Day.

Five belgian usergroups, BIWUG, VISUG, SQLUG, IT-Talks, and Pro-Exchange, have decided to combine their efforts to organize a joint-event just before summer starts. This event will be the biggest community event in Belgium! So if you are eager to learn, eager to get answers to your questions and eager to socialize, come and join us for our very first Belgian Community Day.

I will deliver a fun introduction to Microsoft BI. My collegue Werner Geuens will give an in depth session on statistics.

Full details and free registration can be found on http://www.communityday.be/

Here are the session abstracts.

Intro Session - biTunes – A fun introduction to Microsoft BI with SQL Server 2005 and… iTunes !

Session abstract:

SQL Servers 2005 gives you all the tools you need for building end-to-end business intelligence (BI) applications. In this demo driven session we walk through the complete SQL Server 2005 BI stack. We'll use SQL Server Integration Services to import the iTunes (yes, that's right) music library. We'll build an OLAP cube on top of our MP3 library with SQL Server Analysis Services. Finally we'll use SQL Server Reporting Services and Excel 2007 to reveal information you thought you could never retrieve from iTunes. Come take a walk on the BI-side…

Speaker:
Frederik Vandeputte, Senior Consultant at Kohera and Vice President of the Belgium SQL Server User Group

Deep dive: Statistics in SQL Server 2005, what can go wrong

Session abstract:
Maybe you are not aware of it but every index is accompanied by its statistics. You can create statistics without index, but why would you do that? Even the engine creates statistics when it feels like doing so, how can that be of use to us? We have new database settings concerning statistics in SQL Server 2005; let's take a look at these. Once you know the use of statistics you'll realize that they need maintenance, how should we do that?

Speaker:
Werner Geuens, Senior Consultant at Cronos.

Community day 2007

Five belgian usergroups, BIWUG, VISUG, SQLUG, IT-Talks, and Pro-Exchange, have decided to combine their efforts to organize a joint-event just before summer starts. This event will be the biggest community event in Belgium! So if you are eager to learn, eager to get answers to your questions and eager to socialize, come and join us for our very first Belgian Community Day.

The event will take place at the premises of SemCom in Keerbergen on Thursday, the 28th of June 2007.

Free registration and full details can be found on communityday.be