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Archive for the ‘SQLAuthority News’ Category

Here is very interesting news from my friends at Koenig Solutions. They have opened a new IT training center which is indeed the state of the art facility. Here is the quick note of what I have observed about their new facility. This is excellent news for me as the leadership team of the Koenig and I go a long way back. It is fantastic to see your friends growing and becoming the largest IT Training Center.

Koenig Solutions houses the world’s largest IT training center in New Delhi. It comprises over 50 classrooms for imparting training as well as more than 26 hi-tech testing stations. There are also four other campuses throughout India, as well as a center in Dubai, to best suit all the students, no matter where they are.  Every campus boasts the same high standards, facilities, and amenities.  Their original facility in New Delhi remains the most popular classroom for “destination learning.”

This modern facility also boasts of an in-house coffee shop and travel desk to cater to all possible needs of our students, in addition to their educational requirements.  The facility doubles as a classroom and as a world-class hotel, with lodging for 25 students.  Every room features hot and cold running water, satellite television, and LCD screens.  There are also free laundry services, a free gymnasium, and free yoga classes.  At Koenig you can exercise your mind and your body!

Koenig’s Delhi Centre also garners huge credibility based on the fact that it is the largest Prometric and Vue testing center in India.  Having both certification tests available in one spot is extremely helpful because the two providers offer certifications in different technology companies.  For example, Microsoft uses only Prometric, while Cisco uses only VUE.  If you prefer one certification or another, or would like to try both, the Dehli Center is equipped to meet all your needs.

All these benefits make our Delhi Center irresistibly attractive to those who are looking for great quality training coupled with excellent infrastructure.  Additionally, fun day trips are within easy reach via this campus.  Visit Agra, location of the Taj Mahal, one your time off.  Combine business with pleasure, and learn while exploring amazing historical sites.

Other facilities:

Library: Access to a vast and rich study material for students who constantly like to expand their knowledge base.  Traditional text books are obviously available in the library, as well as online resources, so that you can better research any topic that catches your attention.

Prayer Room: Meditate and find peace in the prayer room whenever you feel like reconnecting with your Higher Self.  It has been repeatedly proven that after a day filled with study, exercise, and physical or mental exertion, the best way to both recover and recall the material is to spend some quiet time with yourself – not necessarily thinking about the subject, but letting your subconscious do the work for you.  Give the Prayer Room a shot.  You are guaranteed to emerge more relaxed.

Reflexology: Give those aching muscles some rest with a reflexology session and get back to study lessons feeling rejuvenated.  Most exercise programs recommend a full-body workout – it is pointless to exercise only the arms, or only the legs.  It is the same with learning.  Exercising the muscle that is your brain will leave the rest of your body “left out.”  We make sure to provide opportunities for our students to make the most of their training.

If you are traveling to Delhi – I suggest to stop by Koenig Solutions‘s IT center and check out their ultra modern facilities.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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Plan Caching and Recompilation in SQL Server 2012 Whitepaper has been my favorite paper for a long time. Plan caching and recompilation are two of the best concepts which are explained in depth by my favorite author Greg Low. I have met Greg several times and I have been a big fan of his writing and ability to make complex very easy. The same white paper was earlier available for SQL Server 2005 and 2008.

This paper explains how SQL Server allocates memory for plan caching, how query batches are cached and suggests best practices on maximizing reuse of cached plans. It also explains scenarios in which batches are recompiled, and gives best practices for reducing or eliminating unnecessary recompilations and for minimizing plan cache pollution. The white paper explains SQL Server’s statement-level recompilation feature and many tools and utilities that are useful as observation tools in the processes of query compilation, query recompilation, plan caching, and plan reuse. (Abstract from whitepaper).

I strongly encourage everybody to read this whitepaper if you are interested in the performance tuning as well interested in learning about the essentials of the query optimization.

Download the Plan Caching and Recompilation in SQL Server 2012 Whitepaper.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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Learning any technology is easy when we have good documentation and sample database to play along with. When I have to learn any new technology, my first action is to install the trial software and look for sample database next. Once I get sample database, I try to find a video tutorial about the technology and continue to learn onwards.

Recently Microsoft has released the samples for PowerPivot in Excel. This is excellent as this gives opportunity to developer to play with the sample and learn all the features without worrying about building a sample which can work with all the features. PowerPivot empowers users of all levels to access and mashup data from virtually any source. Users can create their own compelling reports and analytical applications, easily share insights, and collaborate with colleagues through Microsoft Excel and SharePoint.

If you open a sample for PowerPivot for Excel 2010 in PowerPivot in Excel 2013, you will get a notification stating you must upgrade the data model in the workbook. You cannot open a sample for PowerPivot in Excel 2013 data model in PowerPivot for Excel 2010. In sample database there are two different files 1) PowerPivotExamplesExcel2010.zip and 2) PowerPivotExamplesExcel2013.zip

Each sample file contains three Business Intelligence samples:

  • PowerPivot Healthcare Audit.xlsx
  • PowerPivot Tutorial Sample.xlsx
  • LCA BI – Financial Report Usage.xlsx

Download Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and PowerPivot in Excel 2013 Samples

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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I recently released a Introduction to ColdFusion video course on Pluralsight. The course is very well received and I have received a quite a lot of good feedback about it. However, one of the questions keeps on showing up in my email box is that users had no idea that I have worked with programming language ColdFusion and I am still a hands-on expert on this subject. In response to the most asked question – I have decided to write this blog post where I explain -

History of Pinal Dave and ColdFusion

Everybody starts their learning from somewhere. I started in my early career doing a lot of different things. It is hard to forget what someone learns during their early career. When I was in college, I have worked 9 months at Juice (Smoothies) center. I still remember every single recipe of the juices. In my current trip to USA, I have surprised the Juice Maker (I do not know the technical word for anyone who prepares the juice – for coffee I know it is Barista), with my knowledge of the juice recipes.

History – ColdFusion and I

When I started my career in 2004, I was not the database developer. The matter of the fact, I was not allowed to take courses of Database in my graduate study stating the reason that I do not have all the prerequisites to take the database courses. The pre-requisite to take database course was the course called “Introduction to Programming”.  As I was electrical engineering student, I did not take any programming courses and hence no database courses. When I graduated I got very first opportunity to work as a System Administrator. The word system administrator is very nice as I was actually just doing installation of Windows on the machine. One month in the job, I learned that besides Windows, I have to learn to install ColdFusion to the system as the shop where I worked was using the programming language ColdFusion.

History – ColdFusion Books and Cleaning Week

I always felt the name ColdFusion is very exotic as it sounds like nuclear processes. During annual “tidy up” week, where every desk owner had to clean up and remove useless stuff from the desk, there were many ColdFusion books of the earlier version in the garbage area. Out of curiosity, I picked up all the books and brought home. Few books were in the very shape and I had to process them properly using them.

History – Beginning ColdFusion

Now I had a total of 8 ColdFusion books of earlier versions. I installed ColdFusion on my machine and started to practice it. It was indeed fun language and I picked up quite a lot every day. Later in the office whenever I started to have free time, I started to practice various tricks and tips of ColdFusion. Very quickly I had moved from beginner to advanced beginner stage. Our organization has grown and we had few freezers in the organization. Now the situation was a bit changed, they were beginner and I was advanced beginner. Whenever Freshers faced any issue with ColdFusion they started to ask me a question . I loved it, it was a great pleasure for me to help them and gradually I started to spend more and more time helping people learn ColdFusion.

History – ColdFusion Certification and India Trip

During this period of the time, I was working in the USA. It had been almost 2 years since I visited India. It costed around USD 1000 to visit India in the year 2004. During this year, our organization had announced that whoever, who will pass the ColdFusion exam they will get USD 3000 as a salary increase. Remember this is salary increase and not one time bonus. It was quite a big deal at that time. I decided to take the ColdFusion certification exam and if I pass I decided to use the money to travel to India.

I passed the ColdFusion exam with Advanced status in very first attempt and visited India within 3 months from the time from the award money which I received as a part of my salary.

This is how my journey with ColdFusion started. 

Present – ColdFusion and Present Day

I am big fan of ColdFusion Technology – it is very easy to learn and it helps build the application at a rapid pace. Adobe has recently released its latest version 10. When I saw that Adobe has released the latest version and the next version is in the pipeline I look around for any books or tutorial and very quickly found out that there is not much educational material available for the latest version. There are many quality books on version 9, but not the latest version 10.

I have been keeping myself updated with this latest technology and have been helping users world-wide when they face issues with the technology. Later I decided to build a video tutorial which gives the user’s fundamentals of the language.

Now – Introduction to ColdFusion – Video Tutorial

I have build an over 2 hours of video on ColdFusion Programming Technology. I explained in detail how ColdFusion works and how quickly you can get going with ColdFusion Technology. If you are interested in ColdFusion technology, I suggest that you check out this video course. If you are not into ColdFusion, this may be still interesting course to go over. I have few free access code to watch the course. If you are interested in watching this course, I suggest you send me an email.

Here is the outline of the course. This is just a basic course to get users going on this subject. There may be advanced courses in the future where it covers more advanced concepts.

  • Introduction
  • Introduction to ColdFusion Markup Language
  • Conditional Processing with CFML
  • SQL Operations with CFML
  • Building First Data Driven Pages
  • Summary and Resources

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I’ve been evaluating NuoDB, a new database company that is re-writing the rules for relational databases. They’ve introduced a new category – Cloud Data Management Systems (CDMS) – and are claiming to be the first and only.

In an effort to ‘demystify CDMS’, they’re kicking-off a 5 part webcast series where industry experts, analysts, customers and partners will join NuoDB to cover a range of topics related to managing data in the cloud.

If you’re curious about the difference between a CDMS and a NoSQL store, NewSQL or even a 1980s RDBMS, like I am, this would be a good webcast to attend.

The first one starts tomorrow, Feb 19, at 12:00 p.m. EST.  It features Principal Analyst from Ovum, Tony Baer, and NuoDB’s CEO Barry Morris, and promises to cover:

  • Cloud database adoption, challenges and opportunities
  • What it means to be in the Cloud vs. on the Cloud
  • 12 Rules of CDMS and the need for Emergence
  • NewSQL vs. NoSQL vs. SQL

Tony Baer leads Ovum`s Big Data research practice. Over his 25 years in the industry, Baer has studied issues of data integration, software and data architecture, middleware, and application development. Having tracked the emergence of BI and data warehousing back in the 1990s, Baer sees similar parallels emerging in the world of big data today and discusses this frequently in his blog and Twitter feed. Baer’s coverage focuses on how Big Data must become a first class citizen in the data center, IT organization, and the business. He’s definitely someone worth listening to!

And as many of you know, Barry Morris also has over 25 years of industry experience in the USA and Europe, running private and public companies ranging in scale from early startup phase to 1,000+ employees. He loves to build companies around industry-changing paradigm-shifts in technology. Another great person to hear from!

Registration is required and you can register here. I’ll be there. Will you?

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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