Marcin Policht

One of the primary objectives of SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services is deriving meaningful information from relational data. This is accomplished by employing online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining methods, which rely on manipulating multidimensional structures known as cubes. Cubes consist of so-called measures (the term that refers to most commonly numeric values, […]

The primary purpose of data mining is discovering patterns in raw data, which, in turn, offers a means to estimate its future trends. This is accomplished by analyzing its values in the context of a few deliberately chosen mining models and their respective mining algorithms, which identify interrelated columns in the underlying mining structure and […]

In one of our recent articles dedicated to SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services, we presented the characteristics and usage of Data Mining Query Task. As explained, its primary objective is to execute Data Mining Extension (DMX) queries against data mining models and capture their outcome into an arbitrary table. In the case of prediction […]

One of the primary goals of business intelligence is to transform raw data into meaningful information, by combining its sources, discovering its dependencies and patterns, and using them to predict future trends. While the majority of methods that deliver these objectives fall within the scope of Analysis Services and Data Mining, SQL Server 2008 R2 […]

In a recent article dedicated to Integration Services on this forum, we started exploring their ability to interact with other Business Intelligence-related features of the SQL Server 2008 R2 product line, focusing in particular on Analysis Services. After describing the most elementary principles of this technology (which you might want to review before reading further), […]

The primary purpose of SQL Server 2008 Integration Services is to deliver extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) functionality that supports core features of the SQL Server database management system. However, there are numerous scenarios where its role involves interaction with components that provide business intelligence-related features incorporated into the product. In this article, we will […]

As we recently demonstrated, SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services (SSIS) includes a specialized task that allows you to incorporate FTP transfers (as well as the most basic file system based operations) into SSIS packages. While having such a task available makes sending and receiving files via FTP protocol during package execution very straightforward, this […]

SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services incorporate a variety of processes facilitating a wide range of extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) scenarios. One of more common examples of such processes involves copying files across distributed, frequently incompatible systems. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by employing File Transfer Protocol. In this article, we will describe the […]

The omnipresent nature of Web-based technologies expanded the concept of distributed environments with the ability to utilize services hosted on remote servers accessible via standard Internet protocols. This capability can be easily leveraged in SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services by employing Web Services Task, whose characteristics have already been covered in detail on this […]

SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services offer a number of built-in features that simplify implementation of data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) scenarios in order to bring them within reach of database administrators lacking extensive programming experience. Unfortunately, simplicity of these prepackaged components frequently comes at the cost of limited functionality. This becomes apparent, for […]

In the recent articles published on this forum, we have described a couple of methods that allow you to launch arbitrarily chosen processes using SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services. While the scope of the first of them (relying on Execute Process Task) was restricted to the local computer, the second one (leveraging custom .NET […]

SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services includes a number of predefined tasks that implement common administrative actions to help with data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL). While in a majority of cases they are sufficient to deliver required functionality, there might be situations where an extra level of flexibility is desired. SQL Server 2008 R2 […]