So we’re getting closer and closer to RTM and we all hope that Microsoft will deliver a perfect product after such a long time of Betas (sorry, IDWs and CTPs). But you can be sure that this will not be a 100% finished product, just as Windows 2003 and other releases were not perfect on day one. I’m not one of guys telling you “wait for Service Pack 1”, SQL 2005 is a too good product to spend more time without it. But I’m sure you have to expect some issues mostly related to performance.
One issue we got aware of is a performance flaw when you use NON EMPTY with “non trivial” calculated members (well, this seams to be starting with already quite trivial calculations…). We had queries running for minutes and asked Microsoft why they take so long. They suggested exchanging the calculated member with the formula behind it. We had this with just a ParallelPeriod function we used in a calculated member. When we changed the query to use the base measure and put the ParallelPeriod in the query the performance was very good (some seconds for a quite complex MDX).
Remember that NON EMPTY is used very often, i.e. Reporting Service’s query designer uses it by default. So it’s quite likely that you get in touch with this issue.
It’s confirmed that this flaw will NOT be fixed in RTM. And there are others I’m not aware of, yet…
Thomas
It’s quite a while since my last blog and I’m not quite sure how the frequency of new entries will develop in the next time… Some things changed in the last weeks and all are connected to my new employer www.avanade.com. It’s really a great company, a joined venture of www.accenture.com and www.microsoft.com bringing together Accenture’s business expertise with the Microsoft technology we (hopefully) all love…
My job is still closely connected to Business Intelligence, perhaps even more than before. It’s also still very technology focused while my colleague Markus, who moved to Avanade with me, is concentrating on the business side. So we’re now a small little team focusing on BI here in Germany (worldwide we have quite a number of people experienced in Business Intelligence projects) and there are some indicators which make me feel confident that there will be a significant growth in the future. SQL Server 2005 is knocking on our doors and I would be very surprised if not quite a number of companies will let it in.
Currently Avanade is working on an ETL framework bringing together the best practices of many BI projects around the world with the very new things coming up with SQL Server 2005. We can use the experience from SSIS implementations we just finished or which are getting ready for the customer soon.
Together with some other toolsets Avanade offers a very solid foundation for delivering Microsoft based IT projects. So if you’re looking for a partner to develop an enterprise BI solution I have a very good suggestion for you ;-))
And I’ll still try to keep you up-to-date with interesting things I find out. You’re also welcome to give me feedback and if you have any suggestions what you would like to read about at this place, please let me know!
Thomas