Several years ago, I worked for a company where I felt my potential wasn’t being tapped into. I didn’t feel challenged and quite frankly, I felt underemployed. My husband had mentioned to me that he knew about a company, by the name of Pragmatic Works, that gave away a free week of I.T. training to people who were interested in getting into a new career of Business Intelligence. To be honest, I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but it had already sounded better than what I was currently doing. You had to meet certain criteria to even apply: military veterans, unemployed or underemployed.

After submitting the required information, I was accepted into the Foundation. Now, I figured it would be incredibly challenging considering that extent of my experience with computers consisted of checking email and using company software. It took me 1 hour to drive to this little office out in Green Cove Springs. When I showed up on the first day of training, there were about seven other people standing around this little conference room table. You could see that some of the students felt just as apprehensive as I did. We really had no clue what were getting ourselves into.

Our instructor, Devin Knight, whom I might add was best suited for all of us newbie’s, patiently waited for us to get settled in. Devin covered the agenda for the week, which was around T-SQL and Reporting Services. To be honest with you, I think that it could have been the first time most of us heard those words. As the morning progressed, I realized that this would be a challenging week. During a break in the class, I spoke to my husband about booking a hotel for the week so I didn’t spend 2 hours a day on the road traveling back and forth to the office. I wanted to use that time to focus on studying and really just throwing myself into this great opportunity.

Even though I was just scratching the surface in my knowledge for TSQL and Reporting Services, I felt pretty good about what I had learned and I definitely felt like it would be a career path that would consistently push me forward and not allow me to become complacent like other positions I’ve held. Shortly after the Foundation class ended for me, I interviewed for a junior position within Pragmatic Works and received the position. Now let me fast forward a bit.

In my position, I was growing rapidly. A lot of it had to do with an enormous amount of late night studying and really just committing myself. I focused on growing my TSQL and Reporting Services skills and by the time the company was ready to hold another Foundation class, I asked if I could teach it. I felt so blessed and honored to have received that opportunity and it made such a huge difference to me personally and professionally, that I wanted to be a testimonial for other people who were also feeling the way I felt when I first arrived to the Foundation.

On the very first day of the Foundation class that I taught, as I told my story, all the students were shocked that in less than a year, I had sat on the other side of that table as a student myself. After the class ended that week, I felt such a high. I was fortunate enough to be in a position to share my experience and what some of the possibilities are with commitment, drive, passion and enthusiasm.

We are now at our present date and time. The Foundation has been going strong for 3 years now. The demand how grown so much that we went from teaching the class, 2 times a year, to quarterly, to bi-monthly and now monthly. After the conclusion of the weeklong training, students have the option of doing an internship to receive additional training. We have had over 100 students participate in the Foundation and over half of those students have found full time work in either a DBA or BI role.

The Foundation still sticks by its core values:

As individuals and as a company, we have received many great, unexpected opportunities. It is our responsibility socially, to pay that forward to individuals who might not expect to receive those very same equal opportunities. For the men and women who have served our country, you will have first rights to our training opportunities, for we cannot say thank you enough for the daily sacrifice that you are making.

For more information about the Pragmatic Works Foundation, please visit http://pragmaticworks.org.

Sherri McDonald
Business Development Manager
Pragmatic Works

Many developers have contacted us in the past months asking for a free version of Xeround’s database-as-a-service — and we’re happy to oblige!

We’re excited to announce the much anticipated release of “Xeround FREE” - a free version of our popular cloud database. Xeround FREE provides MySQL users with a zero-management, simple, highly available – and best of all completely free - cloud database solution.

CHILL with Your Database in the Cloud

Rather than having to install, configure and maintain a MySQL database in the cloud, you can now easily create your free cloud database with just one click.

With database creation and management out of the way — you can focus on your code rather than on the IT side of things.

Xeround FREE is great for starting out with your database in the cloud. It is suitable for on-going development, testing and staging purposes, as well as for smaller web applications. Available up to 10MB at no charge, Xeround FREE is initially offered on our Amazon EC2 US-East datacenter and as an Heroku add-on, expanding to additional regions/clouds in the future.

Free as in Beer

Xeround FREE is completely free. Forever.

Every Xeround user is entitled to one concurrent Xeround FREE database instance.

To create your free cloud database, simply log in to your account and choose “Create New”, selecting “Xeround FREE” from the list of available editions.

Xeround Cloud Database New Editions

For customers that require larger database sizes, higher levels of scalability, additional support and SLA, we are announcing two additional editions of our cloud database solution: Xeround BASIC and Xeround PRO.

Xeround BASIC is suitable for medium-size applications looking for a cost-effective, plug-&-play, highly available database solution in the cloud. Xeround BASIC is limited up to 250MB and is offered in tiered pricing starting at $17/month.

Xeround PRO (our commercial version that launched last June) is suitable for mission-critical, larger-scale applications that require unlimited scalability, high availability SLA, scheduled backups and more. Xeround PRO already has more than 300 paying customers and boasts a complete end-to-end solution for seamlessly running MySQL applications in the cloud. Xeround PRO is offered in a pay-per-use model starting at $0.21 for GB/hour of data (with a minimum charge for 0.5GB), and $0.43 for GB of data transfer.

Both Xeround BASIC and Xeround PRO are available on Xeround’s datacenters on Amazon EC2 in the US and in Europe, Rackspace and on the Heroku platform.

The first 30 days of using Xeround BASIC or Xeround PRO are free!

To start your free trial register to Xeround, log in to your account and choose “Create New” – selecting either “Xeround BASIC” or “Xeround PRO” from the list of available plans. The 30-day free trial is in addition to your Xeround FREE database instance.

Xeround’s new editions provide you the flexibility to choose the most suitable plan for your needs.

To learn more on the differences between Xeround FREE, Xeround BASIC and Xeround PRO, visits our Plans and Pricing page.

Xeround customers: Check your email for instructions on how to migrate your existing DB to any one of the three new editions.
 

You may also be interested in:

• Connecting Your MySQL-Heroku Application to Xeround Cloud Database


• Cloud PaaS — Application Scalability, But What About Database Scalability?


• Xeround Cloud Database on Rackspace Now Open for Business!

The latest release of Xeround Cloud Database out today now supports round-robin DNS on all of Xeround’s datacenters.

Round-robin DNS guarantees high availability of the connection to your database in a way that does not require you to tweak your application.

In the Database Manager Online Console you can see the DNS hostnames for connecting to your database.

• The Internal DNS points to the internal IP addresses and is used for accessing your DB from within the same datacenter
• The External DNS is used for connecting externally.

Each DNS routes to one of the available IP addresses we supply for connecting to your database. That way, if one IP address is temporarily unavailable, you can still connect to your database instance.

Under the Hood:

Xeround Cloud Database has multiple – and unlimited – front ends that can scale out as the application demands. We supply each DB instance with several IP addresses that are in fact load balancers that route the SQL requests to any of the database’s multiple front- ends. Those IP addresses are being resolved by the round-robin DNS.

What could cause a connection to fail?

Say a cloud server crashes (happens!). Xeround’s service management layer will monitor the machine and will remove it from the DNS entry so further attempts will not try to connect to the failed server. Moreover, Xeround’s auto-healing mechanism employs a “stand-by” machine, which will take over the failed components and then be added to the DNS entry, so further connections could be diverted to it. In the past, you had to code the failover between the connection IPs yourself, whereas now the round-robin DNS simplifies high-availability of your database connections in a way that’s completely transparent to the application.

What does the new DNS mean for our current customers:

New database instances that are created get the round-robin DNS by default. 

Existing customers or trial users that wish to take advantage of the DNS and other improvements of the new release, need to log in to their account and choose “Change Plan” to switch to one of the new editions. Switching to the new version will assign new connection DNS hostnames to your database.

For instructions and code samples for connecting your application to Xeround Cloud Database see here.

If you have any questions or need assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us.

You may also be interested in:

• Delivering High Availability for MySQL Apps on the Cloud


• Connecting Your MySQL-Heroku Application to Xeround Cloud Database


• Xeround Cloud Database Secures $9 Million in Funding Round

The SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event kicks off on March 7, 2012 starting at 8:00AM Pacific (-8:00 GMT) with keynotes from Microsoft Executives including: Ted Kummert, Corporate Vice President, Business Platform Division and Quentin Clark, Corporate Vice President, Database Systems Group. Following the keynotes, you’ll have access to over 30+ sessions to learn about the new capabilities of SQL Server 2012 at your own pace, on your own schedule.

The following sessions below are recommended for all DBAs and IT Professionals that want to learn all about the exciting New World of Data with SQL Server 2012. During the first 24 hours of the virtual launch event, you’ll be able to live chat with members of the SQL Server team to help answer your questions.

Register today at www.sqlserverlaunch.com for the SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event and start adding the recommended sessions below to your calendars.

Breakthrough Insights Sessions:

Rapid Data Exploration: Powerful Self-Service Analysis with PowerPivot
Get a taste of what's new in PowerPivot, the self-service BI experience that enables information workers to build their personal and team BI applications within the familiar environment of Excel: This session will provide a quick introduction to PowerPivot, followed by demos highlighting the top 5 new modeling features delivered with the release of SQL Server 2012.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Julie Strauss, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft   

Credible, Consistent Data: Improving Data Quality with the New Data Quality Services
No matter how brilliant your BI tools are, it's garbage-in-garbage-out. This session will give an overview on the new Data Quality Services product in SQL Server 2012. Come watch this important scenario to learn how to position, sell, and demo the new DQS product.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Ashvini Sharma, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft

Credible, Consistent Data: Improving Data Quality with the New Data Quality Services
No matter how brilliant your BI tools are, it's garbage-in-garbage-out. This session will give an overview on the new Data Quality Services product in SQL Server 2012. Come watch this important scenario to learn how to position, sell, and demo the new DQS product.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Gadi Peleg, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft

Why Should Oracle DBAs Consider Microsoft SQL Server
Today’s medium and large enterprises are complex entities, built on a wide range of technologies. The biggest challenge emerging for IT implementers is cross-platform database management. In a recent survey on DB trends, a third of the respondents said they expect more DB platforms to be introduced in their organizations next year. Learn why Oracle DBAs should consider becoming bilingual DBAs and how Microsoft can help them grow and advance their IT careers.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Bill Ramos, SQL Server Workstream Manager, Advaiya Inc

Mission Critical Confidence Sessions:

Required 9s and Data Protection: Introduction to SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, New High Availability Solution
This session provides an overview of AlwaysOn and explains how you can build a high availability solution using the new features and capabilities. You will learn how to deploy an AlwaysOn solution, how to utilize your secondary hardware for better return of investment and how the new solution simplifies deployment, management of high availability in your environment. The session will also describe how to manage application connectivity of your primary OLTP applications and reporting applications in an AlwaysOn environment.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Santosh Balasubramanian, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft

Required 9s and Data Protection: Protect Data with Higher Chance of Recovery - Includes Recovery Advisor
In this session we will look at new backup and restore capabilities in SQL Server 2012 in order to enhance database protection for customers.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Kevin Farlee, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft

Blazing-Fast Performance: A Technical Best Practices Tour with ColumnStore Index
Go behind the scenes with SQL Server engineers for a quick technical tour of the ColumnStore Index feature and an introduction to best practices for achieving astonishing performance with your ColumnStore Indexes.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speakers:
Susan Price, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
Eric Hanson, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft

Blazing-Fast Performance: Explore FileTables, Full-Text Search and Semantic Search for Faster, More Meaningful Results Across Unstructured Data
80% or more of the data produced and stored are so called unstructured documents and are often not stored in the database, but often need to be managed in conjunction with relational data. In order to facilitate the storage and management of unstructured data, SQL Server has evolved from storing blobs to providing a sophisticated integration with the Windows Filesystem and provides rich services over such data to provide an interesting and compelling application development experience. This presentation introduces the new unstructured data processing capabilities of SQL Server 2012 that provide full Windows application-compatible file management over files stored in SQL Server as well as the services to unlock the information in such data such as the extensions and improvements to Full-Text Search and the introduction of semantic similarity search.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speakers:
Il-Sung Lee, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
Jack Richins, Senior Developer Lead, Microsoft

Cloud on Your Terms Sessions:
Big Data Analytics with Apache Hadoop and SQL Server 2012
In this session we will explore Apache Hadoop on Windows Server and Azure and powerful insights we can generate integrating with SQL Server.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Saptak Sen, Senior Product Technical Manager, Microsoft

Optimized Productivity: T-SQL Enhancements
SQL Server 2012 comes with an impressive addition of T-SQL functionality. These enhancements cover a range of topics such as ease-of-use, performance and improved metadata discovery. In this session Tobias will give an overview of these features and dive a bit deeper into some of them using live-coding demos.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Tobias Ternstrom, Senior Program Manager Lead, Microsoft

Synchronizing Data “From On-Prem to Cloud” or “Cloud to Cloud” Using SQL Azure Data Sync
We’ll take a look at SQL Azure Data Sync and see how it can be used to provide an on-going data synchronization for various scenarios like hybrid applications (on-prem to cloud), scale out (cloud to cloud), geo distribution (cloud to cloud across data centers) and so on. We will also show you how SQL Azure Data Sync can be used with other Azure platform capabilities like Azure Reporting Services.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Mark Scurrell, Senior Program Manager Lead, Microsoft

Scale on Demand: Optimizing SQL Server 2012 for Private Cloud
In this session we will cover key private cloud enabling features in SQL Server 2012.
Duration: 20 Minutes
Speaker: Xin Jin, Program Manager, Microsoft

Register today at www.sqlserverlaunch.com to meet the new Microsoft cloud-information platform, SQL Server 2012!

On a Windows Phone 7 project I am currently building I had a need to build a factory that instantiates different concrete classes depending upon an object at runtime.   I have a number of information feeds, that all have different classes built to actually go get their data.  One for RSS Feeds, one for Twitter, etc.  Each Feed has a property for the FeedType, this is the information needed to determine what class to instantiate at runtime.

I have written this pattern many times, but I ran across an interesting post on StackOverflow where Steven gave a different approach to solving this without the classic giant switch statement in the Create method.   I thought it was neat enough to use in my application and share here.

There are a couple of steps you have to take, but none of them are difficult.

• Decorate your objects with a custom attribute
• Build the object types using reflection
• Implement your factory method

Custom Attribute

The attribute I added is called FeedTypeAttribute, I then add it to the concrete feed processor classes.

class FeedTypeAttribute : Attribute
{
    private int _feedType;

    public FeedTypeAttribute(int feedType)
    {
        _feedType = feedType;
    }

    public int FeedTypeId
    {
        get
        {
            return _feedType;
        }
    }
}

Adding the attribute to a class looks like the following.  

[FeedTypeAttribute(1)]
public class StaticFeedProcessor : IFeedProcessor
{
    public StaticFeedProcessor()
    {

    }

    public void ProcessFeedModel(FeedModel feedModel)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

Note that this class would be a FeedType of 1 in my data, but how do you determine what class that is during runtime?  The answer is reflection (and yes, this does work on Windows Phone 7).   Factory Method Using Custom Attributes

public class FeedProcessorFactory : IFeedProcessorFactory
{
    private static Dictionary<int, Type> processorList = new Dictionary<int, Type>();

    static FeedProcessorFactory()
    {
        // Get the types in this assembly that implement our custom attribute
        var targetTypes = from type in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes() 
                         where type.CanBeTreatedAsType(typeof(IFeedProcessor))
                         where !type.IsAbstract && !type.IsInterface
                         let customAttributes = type.GetCustomAttributes( typeof(FeedTypeAttribute), false)
                         let attribute = customAttributes[0] as FeedTypeAttribute
                         select new { type, attribute.FeedTypeId };

        processorList = targetTypes.ToDictionary(p => p.FeedTypeId, p => p.type);
    }

    public IFeedProcessor CreateProcessorByFeedType(int feedId)
    {
        Type feedType = processorList[feedId];

        return Activator.CreateInstance(feedType) as IFeedProcessor;
    }
}

The key here is the type.GetCustomAttributes() call.  The linq expression gets all the type of the current assembly where the type can be assigned from the IFeedProcessor class.  We have to ensure the class is not abstract or an interface, and then get the custom attributes. 

The let clause in the linq expression can be thought of like a local temporary variable.  Assigning the attributes to it, and then processing them in the final select.

Consuming the Factory

Consuming the factory is then as simple as instantiating a factory object and calling the CreateProcessorByFeedType function.  A fully allocated processor is returned ready to handle the feed.

// This is in my container object
private static IFeedProcessorFactory _feedProcessorFactory = new FeedProcessorFactory();


// This is in the function to process the feeds
IFeedProcessor processor = _feedProcessorFactory.CreateProcessorByFeedType(feed.FeedType);
processor.ProcessFeedModel(feed);

Less Coupling is Good This code allows for the addition of new processor classes just by building the class and adding the custom attribute.  Of course you should check if the feedtype is not supported before trying to use the object (I omitted some code used for safety checking).   If a newer class is created in the future to replace a current one I only have to change the custom attribute to handle it.  No switch statements, or remembering to update a config somewhere.

An approach to scheduling a report which can be delivered to users on multiple, non-recurring dates using an IBM Cognos Event Studio agent.

This document is intended to provide a single point of reference for techniques and product behaviours when dealing with the Dynamic Query Mode delivered with IBM Cognos 10.

Were you able to join today’s DB2 Night Show webinar?  Today was the start of this year’s very popular competition.  If you missed it, I strongly encourage you to watch the replay .  Here’s what you’ll get:   Contestant 1- Richard How to Find all DB2... 0 0 110

We are sponsoring the upcoming Cloud Connect Conference in Santa Clara.

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by our booth (#818) and grab yourself this cool T-shirt!

Visiting the Expo hall is FREE: Get a free pass here (Use code CPNACC138)

The expo at Cloud Connect is open Tuesday – Wednesday, February 14-15 – 11am to 6pm.

Hope to see you there!

You may also be interested in:

• Visit Xeround @ Cloud Connect Santa Clara – Get Your Free Expo Pass Today!


• Meet Xeround Team at the 2011 MySQL Conference & Expo


• Data Matters – OSCON and Beyond

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finance.yahoo.com var offsetxpoint=-190 //Customize x offset of tooltip var offsetypoint=-250 //Customize y offset of tooltip var ie=document.all var ns6=document.getElementById && !document.all var enabletip=false if (ie||ns6) var tipobj=document.all? document.all["dhtmltooltip"] : document.getElementById? document.getElementById("dhtmltooltip") : "" function ietruebody(){ return (document.compatMode && document.compatMode!="BackCompat")? document.documentElement : document.body } function ddrivetip(thetext, thecolor, thewidth){ if (ns6||ie){ if (typeof thewidth!="undefined") tipobj.style.width=thewidth+"px" if (typeof thecolor!="undefined" && thecolor!="") tipobj.style.backgroundColor=thecolor if (thetext!='') { tipobj = document.getElementById("dhtmltooltip"); tipobj.innerHTML=thetext; } else tipobj=document.getElementById("dhtmltooltipstd"); enabletip=true return false } } function positiontip(e){ if (enabletip){ var curX=(ns6)?e.pageX : event.clientX+ietruebody().scrollLeft; var curY=(ns6)?e.pageY : event.clientY+ietruebody().scrollTop; //Find out how close the mouse is to the corner of the window var rightedge=ie&&!window.opera? ietruebody().clientWidth-event.clientX-offsetxpoint : window.innerWidth-e.clientX-offsetxpoint-20 var bottomedge=ie&&!window.opera? ietruebody().clientHeight-event.clientY-offsetypoint : window.innerHeight-e.clientY-offsetypoint-20 var leftedge=(offsetxpoint

I have run into this a few times and always have to go to the MSDN to find the answer.  I have a situation where I needed to determine if a given type can be treated as a base type in an object factory.  I wanted to be able to create my concrete classes without having to do a switch statement for each type.

First I had to determine if the types were assignable to each other, then find the type to implement.  I will cover that in another article.  In this one I just want to cover the assignment test.

Can this type be assigned?

There is a function IsAssignableFrom that you can call on a System.Type. 

if( ParentType is ChildType )

It actually has to be written the other way around.

if( ChildType.IsAssignableFrom(ParentType) )

Quick Extension Method

So instead of having to do that all over my code, I wrote an extension method to allow me to do it following a different ordering.  I actually got this basic idea from one of the comments on the MSDN page.

if( parentType.CanBeTreatedAsType(childType) )

As you can see the extension method lets you write the syntax in a more natural manner.  Your preference may differ, but this makes more sense to me.

Example Code

public static class DataExtensionMethods
{
        public static bool CanBeTreatedAsType(this Type CurrentType, Type TypeToCompareWith)
        {
            if (CurrentType == null || TypeToCompareWith == null)
                return false;

            return TypeToCompareWith.IsAssignableFrom(CurrentType);
        }
}

void Main()
{
    System.Type parentType = typeof(ParentClass);
    System.Type childType = typeof(ChildClass);
    
    bool ChildToParent = childType.CanBeTreatedAsType(parentType);
    Console.WriteLine("Child can be treated as parent: " + ChildToParent );
     
    bool ParentAsChild = parentType.CanBeTreatedAsType(childType);
    Console.WriteLine("Parent can be treated as child: " + ParentAsChild );
}

public class ParentClass
{
    public ParentClass()
    {
    }
}

public class ChildClass : ParentClass
{
    public ChildClass() : base()
    {
    
    }
}

Crysta Anderson’s latest blog entry is a must read:  Top Books for your MDM Library .  She’s mentioned several books that I know very well and also recommend.  Her post reminded me that I met author Larry Dubov at IOD last year when he was promoting his... 0 0 156

You are a SQL Server DBA, and I know what you are going through.

You are frustrated at having to correct other people's work. You are tired from being woken at odd hours, or needed to work on weekends.

And the better you get at your job, the more likely you cannot advance in your career because they need to keep you and your skills right there in that cube. You feel stuck.

We've all felt that way. And I'm here to tell you the three things you can do RIGHT NOW that will help you give your database career the jump start you've needed. Separately each one will help to provide you a boost in some way. When done in unison the benefits (both immediate and long-term) will result in an amazing transformation for your career.

So what are you waiting for? Get started by...

1. Downloading SQL2012

Have you ever been with a senior administrator and thought "wow, they sure know a lot of stuff"? Well I am here to tell you that they weren't born with all that knowledge. No, they acquired it over time. And often they learned it while it was still new. Guess what? You have that exact same chance right now! With SQL2012 comes new features such as AlwaysOn and Columnstore indexes. You can learn all about features such as these and in three years people will look to you as the expert. Trust me.

2. Joining PASS

The Professional Association for SQL Server is a group of individuals who are dedicated to the use and care of SQL Server as well as each other. PASS members are always looking to connect, learn, and share with one another information about current in-depth Microsoft SQL Server content. Through knowledge sharing and peer-based learning PASS members find themselves growing their careers by leaps and bounds as database professionals.

Joining PASS is free. and chances are you can find a local PASS chapter or SQL Server user group close to where you live or work right now. Before I joined PASS I used to think that the day-to-day struggles I faced were unique due to the fact that I was working alone. After joining PASS and connecting with other individuals I found out that I wasn't alone, and I found lots of great resources to help me be more effective in my role as a DBA.

3. Joining Twitter

If you have not yet joined Twitter, there is still time. if you don't believe in the value of joining Twitter then try an experiment. Register and set up a Twitter account and post a question during a weekday afternoon. You only get 140 characters, so you'll need to be brief, and (this is most important) use the following 'hashtag' at the end of your tweet: #sqlhelp. When you do you will find dozens of people available to help answer your question, in real-time. And often these folks are the top tier of SQL pros out there, such as Paul Randal (blog | @PaulRandal) or Jonathan Kehayias (blog | @SQLPoolboy).

Beyond the use of Twitter to answer questions you will find a community of folks that are just there for each other. Think of it as a virtual watercooler where you can go for a quick conversation on whatever topic of choice you want or need. For folks who work alone (from their homes) or for database professionals that work on small teams (or just by themselves in a cube somewhere) the ability to reach out and share your experiences with others makes your world a little less lonely.

What are you doing here, still reading this blog post? The sooner you get started the sooner you can reap the benefits.

Thomas LaRock
Vice President of Marketing
Professional Association for SQL Server
Blog: http://thomaslarock.com/
Twitter: @SQLRockstar

Transactional logic that works across heterogeneous databases needs to use global transactions. The IBM Data Server Provider for .NET supports the distributed transaction model from the System.Transactions namespace, which has the capability to create and manage global transactions. The code examples in this article show how to use the IBM Data Server Provider for .NET to create and manage global transactions on the IBM data servers.

Encoding in mainframes is EBCDIC, and encoding in distributed system is ASCII. Mainframe computers need to communicate with distributed systems that include Microsoft Windows, UNIX, and other platforms. The EBCDIC and ASCII code page conversion happens in each communication between the IBM z/OS operating system and the distributed system. However, some characters cannot go round trip between EBCDIC and ASCII in some non-English languages. As a result, the application doesn't work correctly. One solution is to modify application code, but that is often complicated and time consuming. This article presents a light-weight solution as an alternative. No application code change is needed, and you can resolve the issue quickly.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Join Oracle at your local IOUG event this Feb, there are many of them. Also, we’ll be participating in Data Warehousing, Database Security and Big Data events, read on to find out more.

Feb 12-17, 2012 – Las Vegas, NV

TDWI World Conference Series

Join Oracle and learn how Oracle’s solution for Data Integration and Big Data continues to set the standard for information integration architectures.

Bridging the Big Data Divide with Oracle Data Integration

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 7p.m

Denis Gray, Principal Product Manager, Data Integration

 Nick Wagner, Distinguished Product Manager, Data Integration

http://events.tdwi.org/events/las-vegas-world-conference-2012/home.aspx

Feb 25-26, 2012 - San Francisco, CA

ISSA CISO Executive Forum

 Join Mary Ann Davidson, Chief Security Officer at Oracle, and many more industry thought leaders to explore how to maintain best of breed security for the distributed IT enterprise as perimeter controls and borders dissolve.

https://www.issa.org/ciso/?p=435#2

Feb 27-Mar 2, 2012 – San Francisco, CA

RSA Conference

RSA Conference 2012 attendees will have the opportunity to meet with Oracle Security Solution experts, see live product demos, and more by visiting the Oracle Security Solution Showcase (Booth #2425). Exhibit show floor hours: February 27th, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., February 28th, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., February 29th, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. and March 1, 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=139125&src=7259262&src=7259262&Act=10

Feb 28-Mar 1, 2012- Santa Clara, CA

Strata Conference - Making Data Work 

Strata Conference is the leading event for the people and technology driving the data revolution. The home of data science, Strata brings together practitioners, researchers, IT leaders and entrepreneurs to discuss big data, Hadoop, analytics, visualization and data markets.

http://strataconf.com/strata2012

Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) Regional Events:

Feb 14-16, 2012 – Denver, CO

RMOUG (Rocky Mountain OUG) Training Days

RMOUG Training days is one of the largest regional user group conferences in the USA. This is the place to network with local information technology professionals as well as talk to internationally renowned Oracle experts. This year’s schedule includes topics on Oracle Database 11g features, Public Cloud, Oracle Database Appliance, Exadata and Database Security, just to name a few. Visit website for more info. 

http://www.rmoug.org/

Feb 14-15, 2012 – Portland, OR and Seattle, WA

Oregon and Southern Washington Oracle Users Group Meeting.

Topics will include Grid Control 12c, Understanding Big Data and Hadoop and Exadata.

http://www.oswoug.org/OSWOUG/Home.html

Feb 23, 2012 –Redwood Shores, CA

NOCOUG (Northern California OUG) Winter Conference

Located at Oracle Headquarters, the Winter Conference will feature 3 tracks, with a keynote on Big Data from VP of Product Management –Mark Townsend. Topics will include Accelerating Oracle Performance, Oracle Database Security, Best Practices for upgrading Oracle Database 11g, and more.

http://www.nocoug.org/index.html

It seems funny to write a “welcome to my blog” entry after blogging for so many years!  I’m sure I did such an entry when I first started my blog in 2005.  I know that I’ve written welcome-type entries after inviting many people at a conference to read... 0 0 156

  The initial response to DB2 10 has been extremely positive. An early adopter of DB2 10 said, “ We could not have been more thrilled with all the performance improvements! There is definitely gold in this version and you don’t even need to spend time to find... 0 0 352

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v5.2 is now available. SSMA simplifies database migration process from Oracle/Sybase/MySQL and Microsoft Access to SQL Server and SQL Azure. SSMA automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing to reduce cost and reduce risk of your database migration project. 

• The new version of SSMA - SSMA 5.2 provides the following major enhancements:
• Support conversion of Oracle %ROWTYPE parameters with NULL default
• Support conversion of Sybase’s Rollback Trigger
• Better user credential security to support Microsoft Access Linked Tables

Reduce Cost and Risk of Competitive Database Migration
Does your customer have Oracle, Sybase, MySQL or Access databases that you like to migrate to SQL Server or SQL Azure? SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing. The tool provides the following functionalities:

• Database Migration Analyzer: Assess and report complexity of the source database for migration to SQL Server. The generated report include detailed information on the database schema, percentage of the schema objects that can be converted by the tool, and hours estimate for manually migrating those schema objects that cannot be converted automatically. The information can be used for your to decide and to plan for migration. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Schema Converter: Automate conversion of schema objects (including programming code inside package, procedure, function) into equivalent SQL Server objects and T-SQL dialect. The tool provides ability to customize the conversion from hundreds of project setting options according to your specific business requirements. A report will be generated at the end of conversion for any object statement not supported for automated conversion. You can drill down to each of the migration issues and obtain side-by-side comparison between the original source code and the converted source code as well as make necessary modification directly from SSMA user interface. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Data Migrator: Migrate data from the source database to the SQL Server using the same conversion logic and type mapping specified in the project setting during schema conversion. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Migration Tester: Facilitate unit testing of converted program in SQL Server.

Simplify Migration to SQL Azure
Customers can simplify their move to the cloud with the SSMA. You can migrate from competitive database directly to SQL Azure. The tool reports possible migration issue to SQL Azure, convert schema, and migrate data to SQL Azure database. SSMA supports SQL Azure migration from Microsoft Access, MySQL, and Sybase.

Receive FREE technical support and migration resources.
Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) provides free email technical support for SSMA. SSMA product web site and SSMA team blog site provides many resources to help customer to reduce cost and risk for database migration.

Download SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v.5.2
Launch the download of the SSMA for Oracle.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Sybase.
Launch the download of the SSMA for MySQL.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Access.

Oracle Database 11g is now on Google+ !

Adding to our LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook presence, the Oracle Database team has launched a Google+ page. There's already been some open dialog, and plenty of new assets and events posted. Get social and join other members of the Oracle Database world to network, and expand your knowledge of working with Oracle Database. If you're on Google+, add us to your circles! We look forward to seeing you there.

Tell us how we're doing!

We want to keep improving. So feel free to give us feedback on the page, and let us know what topics you would like us to cover more of in the future.