Jacob's Blog on Beyond Relational

How to generate CDATA and NAMESPACE Declarations using FOR XML EXPLICIT

I was asked this question in one of the SQL Server forums recently. The OP wanted to generate an XML document with CDATA sections and NAMESPACE declarations.

SQL Server 2005 introduced WITH XMLNAMESPACES() which is very handy to generate namespace declarations in the output XML document generated by FOR XML. FOR XML EXPLICIT can be used to generate CDATA sections in the XML output. However, what is interesting is that you cannot use WITH XMLNAMESPACES and FOR XML EXPLICIT together.

Here is a FOR XML EXPLICIT query that generate CDATA sections as well as XML NAMESPACE declarations in the output XML document.

SELECT
	1 AS Tag,
	NULL AS Parent,
	'Jacob' AS 'Person!1!Name!element',
	'Hello world' AS 'Person!1!Greeting!CDATA',
	'http://beyondrelational.com/xml.aspx' 
		AS 'Person!1!xmlns:x'
FOR XML EXPLICIT

Here is the output

<Person xmlns:x="http://beyondrelational.com/xml.aspx">
  <Name>Jacob</Name>
  <Greeting><![CDATA[Hello world]]></Greeting>
</Person>

SQL Server Error Handling Webcast for PASS Application Development Virtual Chapter

I will be doing a webcast on error handling in SQL Server for PASS Application Development Virtual Chapter on 26 January 2010.  You can find the session schedule and registration link at http://appdev.sqlpass.org/

This will be the ‘virtual’ version of the session “Best Practices for Exception Handling and Defensive Programming in Microsoft SQL Server” that I presented at Community Tech Days, Ahmedabad and SQL Saturday, New Jersey.

SQL Server MVP Erland Sommarskog has written two great articles that covers error handling in SQL Server in great detail. You can find his articles here:

1. http://www.sommarskog.se/error-handling-I.html
2. http://www.sommarskog.se/error-handling-II.html

One of sources of reference for this session was Erland’s error handling article and I recommend it as a must-read article for every SQL Server developer and DBA.

PASS 2009 Session Evaluations

I was eagerly waiting to look at the session evaluation data after my presentation at PASS 2009 Summit (Seattle, WA) in November 2009. I had written a detailed post sharing my experience at PASS 2009 some time back. You can find the post here: http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/11/22/summary-of-my-experience-at-pass-2009-summit.aspx

XML Schema Collections

My presentation was on SQL Server XML Schema Collections where we discussed XSD and XML Schema Collections in detail. We discussed the basics of XML Schema Collections, saw a number of demos and had an interesting set of questions and answers.

Session Evaluation

Here is the data that I received from PASS Head Quarters recently (for the above session).

Some of the attendees have rated the session at speakerrate.com and here is the rating I received there. (http://speakerrate.com/talks/1679-sql-server-2008-create-powerful-xml-schema-collections-to-validate-your-xml-documents)

• Delivery: 4.87 out of 5.0
• Content: 4.93 out of 5.0
• Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5.0

I would like to thank every one who attended my session and provided their feedback. Your feedback helps me to identify the areas that I need to focus to make the ‘blue bar’ longer next time :-).

PASS 2009 was a great experience, both as a speaker and as an attendee. It was a great opportunity to learn quite a lot, not only about SQL Server, but also about developing leadership and presentation skills.

SQL Azure – Privacy and Security in Cloud Computing

Privacy and Security are two of the key concerns most of us have, when thinking about storing our mission critical data in the cloud. There are people who appreciate the benefits storing data in a cloud based data store such as SQL Azure. There are also people who warns about possible dangers in storing important data in a cloud store.

I recently wrote an introductory article to SQL Azure at sqlservercentral.com. You can read the article here. The discussion forum for this article saw a lot of very interesting arguments on the positive sides of cloud storage and the negative aspects of using a cloud store. You can follow the discussion thread here.

I just found two Microsoft White Papers that answers some of the questions that many of us have about the security and privacy of cloud data.

1. Privacy in the Cloud Computing Era
2. Securing Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure

I have got a very interesting questions to the readers. Did reading these documents bring any changes to your thoughts about SQL Azure or cloud computing in general?

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

XML Training and Holidays

I am currently on vacation after working non-stop for almost an year and I think I really needed a few days to relax. However, I found out again that “no-work is no-fun” and thought of building content an XML Training course that I always wanted.

It was really fun working on this and I did the first training with this course content at 4Axes InfoTech Services in Bangalore on 29th Dec 2009. It was a full day course that covered the XML support in SQL Server in detail.

You can find the details of the course content at http://beyondrelational.com/content/xmltraining.aspx

I have also setup an XML Resource Center where a lot of XML related information is posted. I have also setup an XML Forum and XML Group for people interested to participate in XML related discussions.

XQuery Lab 50 – Reading data from Google Analytics Atom Feed

One of my friends emailed me this morning asking help for reading data from Google Analytics Atom feed, using Query with TSQL.

My friend sent me a sample XML document he obtained from Google Analytics and here is the query that reads information from it.

DECLARE @x XML
SELECT @x = '
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" 
    xmlns:dxp="http://schemas.google.com/analytics/2009" 
    xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">
  <entry>
    <id>http://www.google.com/analytics/feeds/data?ids=ga:17042320&amp;
        ga:city=(not%20set)&amp;ga:country=Canada&amp;ga:date=20091204
        &amp;filters=ga:country%3D%3DCanada&amp;start-date=2009-12-04
        &amp;end-date=2009-12-18</id>
    <updated>2009-12-17T16:00:00.001-08:00</updated>
    <title type="text">ga:country=Canada | ga:city=(not set) | 
        ga:date=20091204</title>
    <link rel="alternate" 
        type="text/html" href="http://www.google.com/analytics" />
    <dxp:dimension name="ga:country" value="Canada" />
    <dxp:dimension name="ga:city" value="(not set)" />
    <dxp:dimension name="ga:date" value="20091204" />
    <dxp:metric confidenceInterval="0.0" name="ga:entrances" 
        type="integer" value="24" />
    <dxp:metric confidenceInterval="0.0" name="ga:exits" 
        type="integer" value="24" />
  </entry>
</feed>'

;WITH XMLNAMESPACES(
    DEFAULT 'http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom',
    'http://schemas.google.com/analytics/2009' as dxp
)
SELECT
    x.value('(dxp:dimension[@name="ga:country"]/@value)[1]','VARCHAR(20)') 
        AS country,
    x.value('(dxp:dimension[@name="ga:city"]/@value)[1]','VARCHAR(20)') 
        AS city
FROM @x.nodes('feed/entry') a(x)

/*
country              city
-------------------- --------------------
Canada               (not set)
*/

View All Labs: XQuery Labs - A Collection of XQuery Sample Scripts and Tutorials

PASS Outstanding Volunteer Award

I shared my PASS 2009 experience in the previous post. One topic that I did not mention in the previous post, and wanted to write separately is about the PASS Outstanding Volunteer Award.

Outstanding Volunteers

As many of you know, PASS is run by volunteers all over the world. These volunteers spend a significant part of their time and energy towards supporting the SQL Server community through PASS. All those volunteers are doing an Outstanding job for the benefit of every SQL Server professional, including me.

I started volunteering with PASS in early 2007. I am having a great time working with those Outstanding volunteers, which contributes significantly to my formation as an active volunteer in the PASS SQL Server community.

PASS Outstanding Volunteer Award

PASS recognizes volunteers with a very coveted PASS Outstanding Volunteer Award every year. I was very fortunate to get the award this year along with a few other PASS Volunteers during the PASS 2009 Summit in November 2009, Seattle, Washington.

Co-owners of this award

Though this award was given to me, there are a few Outstanding Volunteers who equally share the credit of this award. I got this award because of my efforts for PASS in the Asian Region. However, this was not a one-man-show. There is an exceptional PASS Asia Committee that worked very hard for growing PASS in the Asian Countries. This award belongs to everyone who contributed or worked with the committee in one way or another, especially Pinal Dave who worked very closely with me to achieve the goals and Sujata Mehta and Malathi Mahadevan from the Asian Regional Committee. We would not have been able to succeed with our efforts without the continuous guidance and support from Greg Low (PASS Director – Chapters), Rushabh Mehta (PASS Execute Vice President – and President Elect 2009) and Blythe Morrow (all-in-all?).

Other Outstanding Volunteer Award Recipients

Other volunteers who received the Outstanding Volunteer Award this year are the following:

1. Tim Ford
2. Grant Fritchey
3. Amy Lewis

The PASSion Award

The PASSion award is is PASS’s Top Honor which is described as “The PASSion Award is presented annually to a volunteer who demonstrates exceptional dedication to and enthusiasm for PASS and the SQL Server community. PASSion award recipients are nominated by PASS board members and volunteers and selected by the Board of Directors and the Volunteer Committee.” in PASS official website. This is the TOP honor any PASS volunteer can currently receive. This award was given to two exceptional volunteers this year:

1. Charley Hanania
2. Allen Kinsel

Thank You!

I would like to thank every one who directly or indirectly helped us to grow PASS in Asia. I look forward to meet the 2010 award recipients.

Summary of my Experience at PASS 2009 Summit

I made my previous blog post right before leaving for PASS 2009 Summit. I wanted to write a short summary of my experience at PASS ever since I was back, but a couple of critical work assignments kept me busy for the last few weeks.

Flight from New York to Seattle

I had a great flight from New York to Seattle. It was a non-stop 4.30 hours Delta flight which took me to Seattle around 12.30 PM on 1st November. During the flight, I read half of the book SQL Server 2008 Encryption written by my MVP friend Michael Coles and Forwarded by another MVP friend Pinal Dave. The other half I read during my flight back to NY :-). It is a great book and Michael has explained the encryption concepts right from its history, in such a way that experts as well as beginners will understand it alike.

 In Seattle, once again

This was my third visit to Seattle and I was pretty much familiar with the city and the transportation. I had a comfortable travel from airport to my hotel. I did not take many pictures of the city this time, except for a photograph of the electric bus (to show my 6 year old daughter)

Getting to the Washington State Convention Centre

Washington State Convention Centre was all prepared to receive all the attendees and the people at PASS Head Quarters did a great job making all the necessary arrangements. The registration process was hassle free.

The PASS Ribbons

One of the very interesting accessory that attendees receive as part of their welcome kit is the colorful ribbons issued to each attendee based on their achievement, involvement and responsibilities with PASS. And here is what I got.

Jacob Sebastian, Pinal Dave and Jean Rene Roy

My PASS 2009 Presentation – Creating and using XML Schema Collections

This was my second PASS Summit and the key excitement for me was my own presentation on Tuesday evening. My presentation was on XML Schema Collections which explained the basics of XML Schema collections and had a number of very interesting demos.

My presentation was based on my recent book The Art of XSD – SQL Server XML Schema Collections where I have explained SQL Server XML Schema Collections from basics to advanced levels in close to 500 pages.

The session was quite exciting and we had an interesting time doing the Q&A. What was more exciting for me was the presence of Michael Rys, the Lead Program Manager for XML at Microsoft SQL Server Product Team.

Taking Part in Book Signing

Another interesting experience was the Book Signing program organized by the PASS Program Committee. I could meet a number of people working with XML Schema collections and grabbed copies of my book. It was my pleasure talking to them and autograph the copies of my book that they bought at the PASS book store.

Book Signing - Jacob Sebastian and Steve Simon 

Book Signing – Jacob Sebastian and Craig Reitan

A glimpse at the First Version of SQL Server

I started my SQL Server career with SQL Server Version 6.5. During one of the key-note sessions, I got a chance to see the retail package of the first version of SQL Server. It was quite interesting and exciting.

The retail package of the first version of SQL Server

My Favorite Sessions at PASS Summit

I had a wonderful time attending a number of sessions at the PASS Summit. It was quite exciting to be in the sessions of my favorite speakers Michael Rys, Rushabh Mehta and Michelle Ufford.

Michael Rys presenting on SQL Server SPATIAL Indexes

Rushabh Mehta Presenting on SSIS Deployment Challenges

Michelle Ufford presenting on the Challenges in managing Very Large Databases

Experience Summary

My Experience at PASS Summit 2009 was great. Getting to Seattle from India usually takes around 36 hours which includes the flying time (around 21 hours) and the transfer/wait time at various airports (which obviously is not very easy). However, looking at what I gained from PASS Summit 2009, these difficulties are not even worth mentioning.

I learned quite a lot from the different technical sessions and the interactions I did with other industry experts. I had a chance to discuss a number of issues that I experienced in various assignments, with people having expertise in those specific areas.

I had a great time networking/meeting other industry experts. This was the first time I presented in a PASS Summit and that was a great experience too. The various events that the PASS HQ people organized, such as MVP Lunch (Birds of a feather lunch), Book Signing program, Microsoft Insiders sessions, meetings of volunteers, chapter leaders and regional mentors etc gave me a great experience and were very helpful in my growth as a member of SQL Server and PASS community.

Thank you PASS and thank you everyone for the time you spent to meet me and talk to me at PASS 2009 Summit.

Getting ready for PASS Summit, See you in Seattle

I am wrapping up my work in NY and getting ready to go to Seattle for PASS Summit. I will be in Seattle from Sunday afternoon (1 Nov 2009) to Saturday morning (7 Nov 2009). I look forward to see many of you during PASS Summit.

Contacting Me

Email is the best way to setup a meeting time if you would like to meet me. However, it is not mandatory; If you see me around, just feel free to jump in and ‘interrupt’.

My talk on Creating XML Schema Collections

I will be speaking on Creating XML Schema Collections and the session is on Tuesday (3 Nov 2009) 4.30 PM to 5.45 PM in Room Number 612. We will go over the basics of XML Schema collections and see a number of demos that perform a variety of validations on XML Documents. A few of you will be able to grab copies of my book The Art Of XSD – SQL Server XML Schema Collections during my session.

Join me at Birds of a feather (XML) Lunch on Tuesday

Before you read further, I would suggest you read Mike Walsh’s post on what is Birds of a feather lunch.  I will be hosting the XML table and nine of you can join me for lunch on Tuesday. We will discuss SQL Server and XML. I will not be the only one talking at the table, in fact, all of us will be discussing, asking and answering questions, praising and cursing XML. I look forward to meet many of you at the Lunch Table on Tuesday.

Join Pinal Dave at Birds of a feather (CDC) Lunch on Tuesday

Pinal Dave will be hosting the CDC lunch table. Those of you wants to take part in the Change Data Capture (CDC) discussion, please be at his table (which will be close to my table) ‘on time’ (honestly, he is a SQL Server Star and if you are late by a minute, you might miss the opportunity to lunch with him).

See you at PASS Summit.

SQL Server Saturday at Microsoft Iselin

I am just back from the the SQL Server Saturday event (Microsoft Iselin) and had the honor of presenting with Michael Coles and Robert Pearl, two great SQL Server Experts of New York. It was a fantastic event with close to 100 SQL Server developers and DBAs, which triggered a lot of interesting discussions around various aspects of SQL Server.

Getting to the Venue

Robert was kind enough to pick me up in the morning from Brooklyn, along with my colleague Joe. None of us were familiar with the location and neither Google Map nor Map Quest helped us to to get to the venue on time. After driving around New Jersey for close to an hour, we finally located the Microsoft Building.

Michael Coles and SQL Server Spatial Support

I missed the first part of Michael’s interesting presentation. Michael explained SQL Server 2008’s spatial data support in great detail along with a number of very interesting demos. Instead of explaining the spatial features by showing a world map and places that does not make sense to most of us (that is what I always saw elsewhere), he really demonstrated the spatial features on New York’s own Road Maps and Subway Maps which made the presentation very interesting and valuable.

I had been exploring the spatial support recently to add some of the spatial features to our home health care solution HhaeXchange (http://www.hhaexchange.com). Many of the examples that Michael demonstrated were very close to what I was looking for, and it reduced my work tremendously.

Thank you Michael for putting up a great presentation, giving me a copy of all your demos and the spatial database you created with a lot of hard work. Most importantly, thank you for driving me back to New York (Michael lives in New Jersey), I know it should have taken you several hours to get back to home after dropping me.

Michael authored close to a dozen great books on SQL Server. I would recommend reading them, especially the following books.

1. Pro T-SQL 2008 Programmer’s Guide
2. Pro Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2008
3. Accelerated SQL Server 2008
4. Pro SQL Server 2008 XML
5. Pro T-SQL 2005 Programmer's Guide (Expert's Voice)
6. Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption

Robert Pearl and SQL Server Auditing

Robert Pearl presented a very interesting session on SQL Server Auditing. He explained how to configure auditing in SQL Server, how to configure Change Data Capture and walked through tracing and management of transaction logs.

Robert had been doing a lot of work in SQL Server internals. He has a web based SQL Server Monitoring Product, SQL Centric, which is capable of monitoring one or more SQL Server databases and can send you notification/alert emails in case something goes wrong.

Thank you Robert for the insights you provided into SQL Server storage engine and Transaction Log Processing.

Jacob Sebastian and “Best Practices for Error Handling and Defensive Programming in SQL Server”.

I am very glad to know that every one found the session very interesting and helpful. Thank you Melissa for your complement “SQL Server Fire Cracker”.

Jacob and Melissa

Thank you Michael for walking around and clicking all the photographs.

Gifts and Prizes

A lot of gifts and prizes were distributed among the attendees which included several autographed copies of my book The Art of XSD – SQL Server XML Schema Collections, Michael’s book Pro T-SQL 2008 Programmer’s Guide, several copies of Windows 7, including a Signature Edition copy, T-shirts from Red-Gate and many more.

Thank you and don’t forget to rate my talk

I would like thank everyone for attending the session. I look forward to hear your feedback (though many of you talked to me after the session), please go to http://speakerrate.com/talks/1556-best-practices-for-exception-handling-and-defensive-programming-in-microsoft-sql-server4 and rate my talk there.

See you in New Jersey SQL Server UG Meeting on 24th October 2009

I have not been able to write on my blog for quite some time. I am currently in NY for an onsite assignment and have been quite busy lately. I hope my life will get back to normal soon :-)

I will be presenting at the New Jersey SQL Server User Group on 24th October 2009 on “Best practices for exception handling and defensive programming in SQL Server”. I am glad to have the honor of presenting with two great SQL guys, Michael Coles and Robert Perl.

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, October 24^th
• Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm (Sign-in begins at 8:15am)
• Location: Microsoft Office (Iselin, NJ)
• Registration Link: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=141878

Speakers and Sessions

Michael Coles ["Where in the World?" -- Spatial Data in SQL Server 2008 ]

SQL Server 2008 introduces two new core data types for storage and manipulation of geospatial data. You can use SQL Server's built-in library of spatial operations to perform complex geographic calculations quickly and easily, and interface the spatial data types with front end mapping tools. The R2 release of SQL Server 2008 adds even more spatial data functionality to the Microsoft BI stack via Reporting Services improvements. In this session attendees will learn how to store, manipulate, and perform calculations with geospatial data in SQL Server to enrich their applications.

Robert Pearl [Who Did it and Ran?']

Robert Pearl brings us a SQL caper that takes us on a journey through the depths of the sql server internals world, putting us on the trail of who did what and when to your database. This presentation will be an exercise in database forensics that will apply computer investigation and analysis techniques to set up auditing and evidence collection, by leveraging the native SQL Server features out-of-the-box. We'll explore the Transaction Log, SQL 2008's Change Data Capture (CDC), and other methods to secure your database (to put us in compliance (ie: SOX, HIPAA, etc.)

Jacob Sebastian [Best practices for exception handling and defensive programming in SQL Server ]

This session focuses on understanding errors and error handling in SQL Server. We will see a number of demos that show how to detect errors, control errors and handle errors. It also focuses on exposing some of the common programming mistakes and pitfalls.

I hope to see many of you at the event.

Community Tech-Days Ahmedabad – Thank you for attending!

Though I wanted to write a blog post with a quick summary of Community Tech-days Ahmedabad event, I could not really do that for the last several days because I was travelling. I had to leave right after the event for New York for a 4 week on-site assignment.

A few of my friends have already written great blog posts covering the event in great details.

1. Vinod Kumar’s Blog - A’bad UG CTD and Gandhi Ashram
2. Pinal Dave’s Blog - SQLAuthority News – Community TechDays in Ahmedabad – A Successful Event
3. Ritesh Shah’s Blog - Microsoft Community Tech Day in Ahmedabad on 3rd OCT 2009
4. Tejas Shah’s Blog - Community TechDays at Ahmedabad - Great Event
5. Imran’s Blog - Overview of new features in windows 7 - MTD Session

I had a great time meeting and having a quick chat with many of you. It was a pleasure meeting some of you after so many years. Thank you for attending Community Tech-days.

Thank you Vinod Kumar, Pinal Dave and Prabhjoth Bakshi for making it a great event. Special thanks goes to the guys at Microsoft who agreed to bring the event to ahmedabad and to my friend Ashwin Kini who coordinated the event.

Vinod Kumar Presenting on Windows7 and Office 2010

Pinal Dave presenting on the ‘Other side of Indexes’

Jacob Sebastian presenting on ‘Best practices for exception handling in SQL Server’

Prabhjotsingh Bakshi presenting on .NET 4.0

I got several emails asking for the the PPTS and the sample scripts that I used in the presentation. I will make them available for download soon. I request those of you who attended my session, to go to http://speakerrate.com/talks/1473-best-practices-for-exception-handling-and-defensive-programming-in-microsoft-sql-server and rate the talk there.

Community Tech-Days Ahmedabad on 3rd October

Community Tech-Days is coming to Ahmedabad again. The event is scheduled to be on 3rd October 2009. I look forward to see many of you in the venue on 3rd October.

What is Community Tech-Days?

Community Tech-Days is a technology event organized by Microsoft to help IT Professionals and developers catch up with the latest technologies and development methodologies. This event is pretty much close to the ‘Tech-ED On the Road’ we had recently.

The Community Tech-Days website says “Dive deep into the world of Microsoft technologies at the Community TechDays and get trained on the latest from Microsoft. Build real connections with Microsoft experts and community members, and gain the inspiration and skills needed to maximize your impact on your organization while enhancing your career.”

I agree with the description 100%.

Click here to register for the event.

Who are the speakers and what are the topics?

I am very excited about the Community Tech-days, some of the top speakers in the industry will be speaking on a number of very interesting subjects.

Vinod Kumar, Microsoft India (Tips and Tricks with Office 2010, Windows 7 – A Dream Operating System for IT Profession)

Vinod Kumar works as a Technology Evangelist (Databases and BI) with Microsoft India specializing primarily on SQL Server. With the love and passion for SQL Server he would want to help the community to maximize their investments on SQL Server by utilizing the product in the right way in their design, development, architecture and deployments. He has been working in the industry on various Microsoft technologies for the past 8+ years and been MVP - SQL Server for more than 3+ years before joining Microsoft. He has been a regular speaker at many of the MS Events like TechEd, MSDN, TechNet and many more. Also loves the local Microsoft Communities and has helped them in every single opportunity available. Apart from SQL, his part-time love is around Office suite of products which he plays a lot with.

Pinal Dave, SQL Server MVP (SQL Server 2008 - The other side of Index)

Pinal Kumar Dave is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and a prominent expert on SQL Server technologies. He has written over 1000 articles on the subject on his blog at http://blog.sqlauthority.com. He is a dynamic and proficient Principal Database Architect, Corporate Trainer and Project Manager, who specializes in SQL Server Programming and has 7 years of hands-on experience. He holds a Masters of Science degree and a number of certifications, including MCDBA and MCAD (.NET). He was awarded Regional Mentor for PASS Asia and is also Mentor for Solid Quality India.

Jacob Sebastian, SQL Server MVP (Best Practices for Exception Handling and Defensive Programming in Microsoft SQL Server)

Who is this guy??? I think I have seen him somewhere ;-)

Prabhjot Singh Bakshi, Professional Trainer (.NET Framework 4.0)

A Microsoft Certified Trainer, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Dubai(UAE) based, E- Consultancy FZC, a Trainers outfit which pioneering to teach over internet across the globe. Also imparting Corporate training to Professionals of leading IT Companies, including IBM, Microsoft India, Accenture, Cap Gemini, Intel, Scope(Standard Chartered), Mcafee , Royal Bank of Scotland, KPIT Cumins, Wipro, HCL, CSC, Computer Society of India, Patni, Ness, Mphasis, Polaris, ICICI, 3iInfotech, L&T Infotech, Kambay, Virtusa, Aces Goa, Logica, Solid Exact Solution(Holland), SMTC(Dubai), Ceridian (Mauritius) and many more. He interacts with the IT professionals and assists them to adapt and horn their skills on what’s new.

Date, time and location

Community Tech-Days Ahmedabad starts on 3rd October 2009 from 9.15 AM onwards. It is a full day event with 5 sessions on core ITPro/Dev topics.

Location: Hotel Anmol, H l College Lane, Opp Bank of Baroda, Navrangpura. Ahmedabad – 380009

SQL Quiz: My Journey Towards the SQL Server World

My friend and SQL Server MVP, Jonathan Kehayias (@SQLSarg) tagged me and it is now my turn to disclose the path that I travelled to reach the SQL Server World.

After I read Jonathan’s post, I tried to travel backward through my career in the IT industry. It was fun, very interesting and emotional.

I never got a chance to touch a computer in the school. My first exposure to computers took place in 1990 at Rogate Ashram, India, a religious house run by Rogationist Fathers from Italy. Head of the Ashram, Fr. Vito Antonio Lipari gave me the first lessons of computers in 1990 and I picked them up pretty well.

Fr. Vito Antonio Lipari

Fr. Vito had a Toshiba laptop and that was what we used for the initial training. I don’t remember the model or the ram, hard-disk size etc, but it was a cute little laptop that I liked very much. (I am glad that I could find an old photograph of the laptop from my photo album)

The Toshiba Laptop that I first worked with

The computer was equipped with 5 software programs.

1. Wordstar -  A word processing software like MS Word.
2. Lotus 123 -  A spread sheet application, like MS Excel,
3. Professional File -  A software that provides an interface to create data entry screens and view reports.
4. Q&A – An italian softare which is used to generate quizzes, where you can enter objective type questions and their answers. The software randomly generates test papers that can be printed and given to the students.
5. Banner – A software that allows to format/shape text and print in a variety of attractive fonts and layouts.
6. DBase – A relational database management software

That was a very humble beginning and then I got a number of opportunities to work with DBase and that is when I developed an interest in database management systems. The journey continued to FoxBase and FoxPro in the next few years.

FoxPro was my favorite database management system those days. I wanted to explore the capabilities of FoxPro to the maximum. However, very few learning resources were available (and accessible to me) at that time. I could find no good FoxPro book in the local book store. Internet access was not easy.

Finally I came up with my own learning resource. I created a Foxpro report from the internal help file of foxpro (foxhelp.dbf) and then generated a text file output from the report. It generated a large text file and I managed to print them all. There were close to 700 pages and I took them to a local book binding store and created a reference  book out of it.

Honestly, that was the first and last book I studied from the first page to the last page. I was not been that sincere even when I was in the school. None of the books I purchased after that were read/studied completely.

I moved to a new company in those days and soon had to switch to Clipper. It was not hard to pick up because a major portion of FoxPro commands were supported in clipper too. After working with Clipper for close to two years, I switched to Visual Foxpro for a short while.

From Visual Foxpro, I moved to SQL Server 6.5 in 1997. That was my first meeting with SQL Server. We then moved to SQL Server 7.0 and then to 2000. I got the opportunity to work on a number of large SQL Server 2000 projects having large databases and complex business requirements.

The experience I gained from designing and building applications in Foxpro/Clipper for verticals such as manufacturing, banking, insurance etc, has helped me tremendously in the later part of my career. I am deeply indebted to those colleagues and seniors who have contributed directly or indirectly towards making me a better Relational Database Citizen.

Let the game continue and let me Tag:

1. Pinal Dave (@pinaldave)
2. Steve Jones (@WAY0utwest)
3. Michael Coles

Business Intelligence Hands-On-Lab at Microsoft Chennai

I am just back from Chennai, after doing a Hands-On-Lab on Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform.

It was a great experience spending two days with a wonderful set of SQL Server developers and administrators from Chennai, sharing my experience in building BI solutions using Microsoft Business Intelligence platform and helping them do the Labs.

Here is a summary of what we did.

This is part of a series Hands-On-Lab that my friend Pinal Dave (SolidQ) is doing in several Indian Cities. You can see the list of other cities where similar training sessions are organized here. Pinal has so far done this training in 9 other cities (as you can see in his posts) and as per his request I helped him with session in Chennai.

I would like to thank everyone for attending the session and making this a great learning experience for all of us.