MS SQL SERVER DBA

Report layout can be boiled down to a few, simple design patterns. These simple styles also can be combined with others to form composite reports and more advanced layout to visualize data. This section offers a quick review of the report layout types, followed by some examples.     Tabular Reports   Tabular reports have been around for thousands of years. Well, they may not have been reports in the modern sense, but when you think about it, some common reports are really little more than  “ lists of stuff ”  organized into rows and columns. Ever since early merchants began trading seashells or precious gems for beaver pelts or goat cheese, someone was recording the transaction in some kind of list, be it on papyrus, stone tablets, or a tablet PC.   Ever since VisiCalc, the predecessor to Lotus 123 and Microsoft Excel, was released in 1981, the tabular spreadsheet format has become the way many computer users are accustomed to v...

Reporting Services Tools Reporting Services supports the full reporting life cycle. This support is provided through a collection of tools that come with Reporting Services, as identified in the following table. Authoring Management Delivery Report Designer Report Manager Report Manager Report Builder1.0 SharePoint reports library HTML Viewer Report Builder 2.0 Reporting Services Configuration Manager SharePoint libraries and web parts Third – party authoring tools SQL Server management applications Command - line utilities Report Viewer controls Reporting Services Web service Subscriptions

  The reporting life cycle is often described as a process consisting of three sequential phases. A report is first designed and developed in the authoring phase, made accessible to end-  users in the management phase, and then placed in the hands of end - users in the delivery phase. Authoring • End-User • Report Specialist | Management • Content  • System  | Delivery • On-Demand (Pull)  • Subscription (Push)   Authoring   The  authoring phase  of the reporting life cycle starts with the gathering of requirements through formal and informal processes. These requirements then drive the design of queries that provide data for the report. Data is integrated with charts, tables, matrices, or other presentation elements to form the basic report. Formatting and layout adjustments are then applied to produce a draft report that is validated for accuracy and consistency with the requirements before being published t...

 (SSRS) Reporting Services runs in one of two modes: Native or SharePoint Integrated. In the Native mode, Reporting Services manages its content using its own internal, or “  native, ”  functionality. This is the traditional mode under which Reporting Services instances have been run.  Reporting Services deployments using Enterprise, Developer, Enterprise Evaluation, or Standard editions are capable of running in the SharePoint Integrated mode. In this mode, content management is handled through SharePoint. Native content management interfaces, such as Report Manager, are no longer accessible.  The SharePoint Integrated mode is a very appealing option for many organizations that want to leverage SharePoint as their enterprise content - management solution; however, there are some limitations, such as the lack of support for linked reports in this mode.  For those organizations that want to run Reporting Services in Native mode but still want to disp...

SQL Server 2008 comes in nine editions, the following seven of which include Reporting Services:     Enterprise   Standard   Developer   Enterprise Evaluation   Workgroup   Web   Express with Advanced Services      The Enterprise and Standard editions are the only editions supported in a production environment. The Enterprise edition provides access to the full set of features available with Reporting Services and runs on 32 - bit, x64 64-  bit, and IA64 64 - bit platforms. The Standard edition provides access to a reduced feature set and does not support the IA64 64 - bit platform. It costs less than the Enterprise edition and may be more appropriate for smaller installations.   The Developer and Enterprise Evaluation editions provide access to the same features available through the Enterprise edition. The Developer edition is very inexpensive and is intended for development and testing environ...

Dedicated Administrator Connection      It is rare, but SQL Server can stop responding to normal queries and appear to be frozen. How could this happen? Consider that when you bought the system that houses SQL Server, you likely planned for future growth and usage. No matter how much time and effort you put into this plan, though, some companies just outgrow their servers too quickly, and the servers can’t handle the workload. In a scenario like this, it is possible that SQL Server might stop responding to normal queries. To troubleshoot this issue, or any kind of problem where SQL Server just isn’t responding to normal calls, you need the Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC).      The DAC is a special diagnostics connection that is always available for connection, even under normal operating circumstances. As the name implies, only administrators (members of the sysadmin server role) can connect to the DAC to run diagnostic queries and trou...

By taking appropriate precautions, most of these breaches can be prevented or detected before they get out of hand.  1. Use a dedicated server for your database Host your database on a dedicated server. Whether it is local or in the cloud, spend the extra cash on a dedicated server to prevent security leaks and breaches. 2. Harden the Operating System On your dedicated server, the first step is to implement operating system hardening. Many hardening techniques exist. At a minimum, you need to: Change the default ports, as described below. Hide SQL instances from showing in the network, as described below. Allow only network protocols that are needed. CONNECT permission should be granted only on endpoints to logins that need to use them. If there is a need to work with SQL Login, install an SSL certificate from a trusted CA rather than SQL Server's self-signed certificates. Avoid the exposure of SQL Server to the public internet/intranet. Change default ...