The inspiration behind this one is my friend Karan's blog about resources on HDInsight. It is a great compilation of resources, and I thought why shouldn't I post one for myself as well.

Well, here it is!

Azure HDInsight Documentation - Important Links:-

• Get started with HDInsight
• Get started using Hadoop with Hive in HDInsight to analyze mobile handset use
• Get started with HDinsight Emulator
• HDInsight Storm overview
• Getting started using Storm with HDInsight (Hadoop)

Here are the Hadoop technologies currently in HDInsight:

• Avro (Microsoft .NET Library for Avro): Data serialization for the Microsoft .NET environment
• HBase: Non-relational database for very large tables
• HDFS: Hadoop Distributed File System
• Hive: SQL-like querying
• Mahout: Machine learning
• MapReduce and YARN: Distributed processing and resource management
• Oozie: Workflow management
• Pig: Simpler scripting for MapReduce transformations
• Sqoop: Data import and export
• Storm: Real-time processing of fast, large data streams

To determine the version of SQL Server, you can use any of the following methods:

Method 1

Connect to the server by using Object Explorer in SQL Server Management Studio. After Object Explorer is connected, it will show the version information in parentheses, together with the user name that is used to connect to the specific instance of SQL Server.

Method 2

Connect to the instance of SQL Server, and then run the following query:

Select @@version

An example of the output of this query is as follows:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - 11.0.2100.60 (X64)
 Feb 10 2012 19:39:15
 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
 Developer Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7601: Service Pack 1) (Hypervisor)

Method 3

Connect to the instance of SQL Server, and then run the following query:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

Note This query works with any instance of SQL Server 2000 or later

The following results are returned:

• The product version (for example, 10.0.1600.22)
• The product level (for example, RTM)
• The edition (for example, Enterprise)

For example, the results resemble the following:

10.0.1600.22 RTM Enterprise Edition

Note The SERVERPROPERTY function returns individual properties that relate to the version information, although the @@VERSION function combines the output into one string. If your application requires individual property strings, you can use the SERVERPROPERTY function to return them instead of parsing the @@VERSION results.

VERSION INFORMATION

SQL Server 2012 version information

The following table lists the major releases of SQL Server 2012:

SQL Server 2008 R2 version information

The following table lists the major releases of SQL Server 2008 R2:

SQL Server 2008 version information

The following table lists the major releases of SQL Server 2008:

SQL Server 2005 version information

The following table lists the major releases of SQL Server 2005:

SQL Server 2000 version information

The following table lists version number of the Sqlservr.exe file:

Of course, if someone seeks more information, please refer to my master source for all of it at Microsoft KB321185 - How To Identify your SQL Server Service Pack Version and Edition.

On November 29, 2012 Microsoft released the “Power View for Multidimensional Models -- Preview.”  The team announced SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 4, on Friday, May 31st, 2013, that'll provide the ability for customers to create Power View reports against their existing multidimensional models (cubes). SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 4 contains a few additional enhancements to the “Power View for Multidimensional Models -- Preview” based on customer feedback.  This functionality helps customers maximize their existing BI investments by enabling their use with the latest BI end-user tools and adds greater modeling flexibility to the BI Semantic Model. Customers need to upgrade their Analysis Services instance and the Reporting Services add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server (2010 or 2013) with this Cumulative Update to create Power View reports against their existing cubes.

Microsoft introduced an interactive data exploration, visualization and presentation experience called Power View with SQL Server 2012. Power View reports are presentation-ready at all times because they are always connected to your data. Users can quickly create a variety of visualizations, from tables and matrices to bubble charts and sets of small multiple charts. Power View operates on a BI Semantic Model that resides in Analysis Services databases or PowerPivot workbooks.

 With the SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU 4, Power View can consume data from multidimensional models. Now Power View users can connect to both the tabular and multidimensional formats of the BI Semantic Model. This is achieved through native support for Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) in Analysis Services multidimensional models, ensuring optimal performance and functionality. SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU4 contains a few additional enhancements to the “Power View for Multidimensional Models – Preview” released in November 2012. Stay tuned for a deeper dive on the functionality in a future post!

FAQs

1. Do I need to upgrade SSAS & SSRS in SharePoint mode?

    Answer: Yes, you need to upgrade your SSAS & SSRS installed in SharePoint mode.

2. Can I upgrade from existing SQL Server 2012 installation?

    Answer: Yes, you can upgrade from an existing SQL Server 2012 installation.

3. In which editions is Power View support for multidimensional mode enabled?

    Answer: Enterprise and Business Intelligence editions.

4. Can I send DAX queries to multidimensional models?

    Answer: Yes, you can send DAX queries to multi-dimensional models.

5. Will Power View in Excel (on-prem or in the cloud) be able to connect to multi-dimensional models (cubes)?

    Answer: No, this update is only supported on stand alone SharePoint (2010 and 2013) mode.

6. When will Power View in Excel to connect to Multidimensional models?

    Answer:Enabling this scenario is a top priority for the team but we do not have any updates on the roadmap or timeframe to share at this time.

Courtesy - SQL BI Team Blog

Here are the five DQS case studies that are currently available on Microsoft.com:

• Areva – Energy Firm Speeds the Delivery of Reliable, Centralized Master Data to Customers
• China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation – Chinese Energy Utility Builds BI Solution to Improve Information Sharing and Efficiency
• Super 8 Hotels Co., Ltd. – Hotel Chain Uses Business Intelligence Tools to Guide Rapid Growth Across China
• Great Western Bank – Fast-Growing Bank Gains Customers and Maximizes Profits with Microsoft BI Tools
• RealtyTrac – Real Estate Website Helps Customers Make Better Decisions with Higher Quality Data

Leverage these to build a strong EIM capability for your customers.

As always, comments and feedback welcome..!!

Today Hortonworks announced the general availability of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows, the industry’s first 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows. The beta version of HDP for Windows was released two months ago at the Strata Conference in Santa Clara Hortonworks and was well received by industry press.

This is a very exciting release as it marks an important milestone in our partnership with Hortonworks and our overall big data approach. We are deeply invested in ensuring customers have choice and interoperability when building and running Hadoop-based solutions -- HDP for Windows is a direct result of the joint engineering partnership between our two companies and today’s release helps to accelerate the adoption of Hadoop in the enterprise by diversifying the number of platforms that it can run on. With HDP for Windows customers can deploy Hadoop today on Windows Server in their own data centers.

HDP for Windows offers customers a 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop distribution that is Enterprise-ready and interoperable across Linux, Windows Server and Windows Azure. For more details visit the Hortonworks website.

In addition, HDP for Windows offers easy migration to HDInsight: Customers can migrate seamlessly from HDP for Windows to Windows Azure HDInsight Service to take advantage of the elasticity and low cost of Hadoop in the cloud.

Download HDP for Windows today from Hortonworks and start testing. Visit the Windows Azure website for more information on Windows Azure HDInsight Service.

This if you’re looking to get started with Data Quality Services (DQS) and Master Data Services (MDS), please leverage these fantastic resources available on Technet. The site includes videos and slides for full day training sessions on both products.

Data Quality Services for SQL Server 2012

• Data Quality Basics and Introducing DQS: Video | Slides
• Knowledge Management and Data Cleansing in DQS: Video | Slides
• Data Matching in DQS: Video | Slides
• DQS Integration with SSIS: Data Cleansing using SSIS: Video | Slides
• DQS Integration with MDS: Data Matching using MDS: Video | Slides

Master Data Services for SQL Server 2012

• Master Data Services Overview: Video | Slides
• Managing Data Warehousing Dimensions with MDS, Part 1: Video | Slides
• Managing Data Warehousing Dimensions with MDS, Part 2: Video
• Data Loading via Entity Based Staging (EBS): Video | Slides
• MDS Hierarchies and Collections: Video | Slides
• Business Rules and Workflow in MDS: Video | Slides
• MDS Model Migration and Upgrade: Video | Slides
• Security Features and Guidelines in MDS: Video | Slides
• Eliminate Duplicate Data with the MDS Add-In for Excel: Video | Slides

I hope the above gives you an insight on two of the most wonderful services within the SQL Server 2012 stack. I'll keep this space updated with more information on the 2 tools as and when I get my hands on them.

When I picked up the two white papers (this one and DirectQuery), I thought this one would be the easier of the two to understand and implement. After all, the basic concepts of the security model can be summarized in a blog post, and there’s even a tutorial on MSDN on how to implement dynamic security. Easy, right? Wrong!

Turns out, the examples were incredibly difficult to write as Cathy shares. Even though there is already an example for dynamic security, the LOOKUPVALUE() function used in the example to implement dynamic security does not perform very well. The dynamic security examples in the white paper use different mechanisms to implement the dynamic row filters. I won’t spoil the surprise, download the white paper and see for yourself.

There's a bit in there about security designs, when to use Kerberos, etc. Not included is how to configure Kerberos for use with Analysis Services. If you need to do that, check out blog posts for previous releases, such as this Kerberos configuration guide and this Kerberos configuration checklist. Also not included in the paper is a discussion of security and DirectQuery, go read the DirectQuery white paper if you need to learn about that.

Again, hope you like the paper.

In the book “Professional Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 with MDX” (Siva Harinath, March 2009, Wrox Press), there is a chapter on security in a multi-dimensional database. This chapter is based on a survey conducted by the director of a company that would like to understand the satisfaction level of their employees. This survey requires that managers are only allowed to see feedback if at least four employees reporting up to them have responded. If less than four respond, a manager is unable to see any results. This is designed to protect the identity of those responding to the survey, so that a manager is not able to guess who gave a negative score.

While Siva’s book focuses on solving the survey problem based on a multi-dimensional AS database, in this article, I am going to reproduce the same solution in an AS model in Tabular mode. The design of the security model in Tabular mode is different enough that we cannot simply follow Siva’s example to create the security model. We must use Row-level security, which is how data access can be restricted in tabular models. Furthermore, the survey featured in this article is based on a satisfaction poll, but uses different questions. I am using the results of a survey conducted here in the AS team to rate various potential moral events from “Great” to “Bad”, with four possible choices. In the example given in the book, there are five possible responses, but for my example four is sufficient. You can find my sample data with obfuscated personally identifiable information in a PowerPivot workbook attached to this article. You can open the workbook first in PowerPivot to View it there, like we will proceed to do, or directly import it into SSDT. The following figure shows the PowerPivot tables and relationships.

First, let’s look at what is contained in this workbook, to clarify the structure that I will use later to create the security design. The data is laid out in five tables. The first table, SurveyQuestions, contains a list of questions with an ID to link it to the other tables. QuestionSections contains the different sections used to categorize the questions. The UserNames table contains the users that took this survey. It also has the manager listed for each employee, which enables us to create a tree to find out how many employees report to a given manager. The ResponseValues table gives the four valid responses. Finally, Responses is the fact table listing each response by every employee on every question. The tables have relationships created between them to assist in modeling the data. This will allow us to look at question names instead of questions by their ID.

Now that we have covered the basic structure of the data, let’s go over the measures and calculated columns in this sample workbook. As seen in the following screenshot, the UserNames table has two columns and multiple measures.

These calculated columns and measures are defined using the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) language in PowerPivot. DAX populates the rows of a column, or the result of a measure. Even though both calculated columns and measures rely on DAX formulas, there is one major difference between these two that is relevant to security. Calculated columns are populated when the database is processed or refreshed. Measures on the other hand are not stored, meaning they are calculated at query time. This is important to keep in mind because it implies that database security is applied to the rows of a calculated column after the column is filled in, as opposed to a measure that will apply the security first, and then only use the data the user is allowed to access when calculating the results.

For our sample, we need to use DAX to calculate average results for all employees that report up to a specified manager. First, we require a DAX expression to determine the direct reports per manager. This expression can then be used in other functions to calculate averages based on the number employees per manager. It can also be used to aggregate rows for a given manager.

DAX has functions for working with Parent Child relationships, such as to establish a relationship between direct reports and their managers. They all use the path from the employee referenced in the current row, up to the top of the Parent Child tree. For example, the PATH function expects an ID column and the column containing the current row’s parent, “=PATH([UserID],[Manager])”. The PATH function then produces a string for each row with a list of parents up to the top of its tree.

Since the path is not going to be useful for analyzing data, we will hide any calculated columns that are based on the PATH function. Keep in mind, however, hiding a column will not protect the data. The data is still available, but it won’t show up in Excel or other modeling tools. It can still be used in measures defined now or later when a user is viewing the data. For example, I created a ChildCount calculated column to determine the number of employees reporting to a given manager:

“ChildCount” “=COUNTROWS(FILTER(ALL(UsersNames), PATHCONTAINS([UserPath],EARLIER([UserID]))))”

This formula counts the rows with the current employee in the path. It is important to note the employee itself is the first node, so the result is off by one from what we would expect, since an employee usually does not report to him/herself.

Now, let’s move from calculated columns to measures. As I stated above, the UserNames table contains many measures. They only vary on the QuestionID. So, I’ll go over one of the measures next and invite you to explore the rest on your own. The remaining measures are just variations.

Average White Water Rafting Results:=if(HASONEVALUE(UsersNames[UserAlias]),LOOKUPVALUE(Responses[AverageChildResponce],UsersNames[UserAlias],Values(UsersNames[UserAlias]),Responses[QuestionID],2398673),BLANK())

 The Average White Water Rafting Results measure looks up a specific value that is calculated on the Responses table, which I will cover next. The measure is added to a PivotTable to display the data in Excel. Because we must protect the individual results from employees that have taken this survey, we cannot just calculate averages in the measures. At the time the measures are evaluated, the measures will not be allowed to see the data for each individual employee, only the responses for the current employee. Calculated columns, on the other hand, are evaluated at processing time so they work with all the data in the model.

The Responses table has calculated columns to lookup the average response for all employees that report up to a particular manager. The AverageChildResponse column and others used to create it can be seen in the following screenshot.

The Responses table includes multiple calculated columns that contribute to the end result, but it could also be calculated in one statement. For simplicity of the formulas, and to make it easier to see what is going on, I broke the logic out into multiple calculated columns. If you wanted to implement this example with your own data, you may want to remove these extra columns because they consume space in the model.

 The AverageChildResponse column first calculates the result without worrying if individual responses are being exposed. Because it performs the calculation before applying the security context, we get the average of the responses. In the next step, the DAX formula eliminates average values if there are less than five users that contain the current user’s ID in their path. To offset the fact that child count includes ourselves we actually set the expression to five instead of four.

=if([ChildCount]<5,BLANK(),CALCULATE([AverageValue],

ALL(UsersNames),

FILTER(ALL(UsersNames), PATHCONTAINS([UserPath],EARLIER([UserID]))),

ALLEXCEPT(Responses,Responses[QuestionID])

))

Before moving on, you may want to make some modifications to the provided workbook. The data in the model is using names copied out of the AdventureWorks database; as such you probably will not have any real user accounts with these names. This step is optional though, since the example will work without real user names. It is easier to test the database if there is a real account in there now.

To add your own user name to the data, open the workbook in Excel. Navigate to the Excel UserNames table, and then change one of the UserAlias values to your own user account. For example, mine is Brad. Keep in mind that if you change one with less than four direct reports, you will see no data in Excel. Having added your user name, just update the PowerPivot model by opening the PowerPivot window, or by selecting Update All on the PowerPivot tab.

Now that we have covered the important elements in the sample workbook, we will apply a security role. PowerPivot is designed for a single user and does not support role-based security, but you can migrate your workbook to a tabular database by using SSDT in Visual Studio. In Visual Studio select New Project, and then under Business Intelligence Templates, there is an option to Import from PowerPivot.

Visual Studio displays a File Dialog, which, after selecting the workbook, will give you a new tabular project with the PowerPivot data already in it.

In this new Tabular Project, you can now create the desired security role. You can launch the Role Manager on the Model menu to create this role. Click on the Roles menu item.

 In Role Manager, create a new Role to block the user from seeing results for other users. This is accomplished by clicking the New button. Define a filter on the UserNames table that is equal to “=LOWER([UserAlias])=SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(USERNAME()),"<domain>\","")”. The DAX formula uses a <domain> placeholder. Make sure you replace this with the name of your local domain. If you have no domain, simply change the formula to “=LOWER([UserAlias])= LOWER(USERNAME())” removing the domain completely. Once the form is filled out, it should look as displayed in the following screenshot.

Don’t forget to select Read as the type of permissions. This will enable the role to query the database, but not change the model.

The effect of this role is that all rows in the UserNames table are filtered so that users can only see rows that contain their user name. One other interesting aspect of roles in Analysis Services is they passively follow relationships. This means the user is also unable to see rows in the Responses table that do not correspond to their row in the UserNames table. This is why it was important to find the average values in the calculated column. Calculated columns are evaluated at the time the database is processed and therefore see all the data. Conversely, measures are evaluated at the time of the query, and as such will only see data the user is currently allowed to access.

Now that we have a role, we must apply it to the users. To do that, switch to the Members tab. On this tab you can add users that will be able to read the database, but only their rows. If a user isn’t a member of any roles, that user will not even be able to connect to the database.

To test this new role in Visual Studio, select the Model menu, and then select Analyze in Excel.

The Analyze in Excel feature gives you multiple options: You can connect as the current Windows user, a different Windows user, a specific role, or with a perspective selected. The Perspective option is not interesting for our scenario. The Current Windows User option uses your logged on credentials. Since the model is always created with the current user having admin privileges, connecting with this account will not apply any security to the model. This is more useful if you wanted to see all the data. If you did not set your user account in the model, setting the specific role will not be useful since your user account will not have any data to view, similar to a user that has less than four direct reports. On the other hand, if you added your own account to the model, you can easily select the role that you just created and it will be applied to your current user account.

The Other Windows User option enables you to select a specific user account. This option applies whatever roles list this account on their Members tab, so you need to have the user assigned to a role to use this option. This option also has another limitation, that like the role manager’s Members tab, it uses Windows user accounts, so the account has to exist to be able to reference it. 

When selecting Analyze in Excel, you open an empty Excel workbook. In order to display results for the current user, add the User Alias column to the row Labels, and a measure for the average of the question you care about, as the following screenshot demonstrates.

 Finally, you can connect with other accounts to see the results of their reports. You can also deploy your project to a production server, and then just share the connection information. Anyone with responses from more than four reports would be able to connect and see the own results without exposing the individual survey takers.

RowSecurity.xlsx

SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 continues to extend the momentum built in CTP3 and brings additional customer value through the following deployment and performance updates:

• AlwaysOn Availability Group OS Upgrade: With the release of SQL Server 2012 RTM the operating system upgrade story for AlwaysOn customers without taking significant downtime to perform a data migration does not exist. The reason behind the problem is that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 do not support an upgrade of clustered servers from previous versions, because of incompatibilities between the cluster versions.
  SQL Server 2012 SP1 provides customers a compatibility solution to do Availability Group migration from a lower version of Windows Cluster to a higher version of Windows Cluster. It can help customers to keep their SLA when upgrade their Windows Cluster operating systems.
• Selective XML Index Performance Update: Selective XML Index solves a longstanding customer performance issue by allowing users to promote certain paths from their XML documents that will be indexed. The update introduces a new type of XML index to SQL Server in addition to Primary XML Index (PXI). The new indexing will improve querying performance over data stored as XML in SQL Server, thus allow for much faster indexing of large XML data workloads and improve on scalability by reducing storage costs of the index itself.
• SSMS Complete in Express: SQL Server 2012 SP1 Express Editions (SQL Server Express With Tools, SQL Server Express COMP, SQL Server Express with Advanced Services and SQL Server Management Studio Express) will now ship the SSMS feature with functionalities that existed with the SSMS from Full Editions of SQL Server. 
• SlipStream Full installation: The SlipStream deployment/packaging capability provides customers a pre-built “Slipstream image” consisting of a compressed self-extracting .exe and a ‘.box’ payload file that contains a SQL Server 2012 RTM image (Setup.exe, MSI’s, etc.) along with the most recent Service Pack. Previously this capability was only provided with the Express SP packages. As with Express Slipstream, users can exercise the .exe just as they would Setup.exe.

For a complete list of changes in SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 please read the What’s new document and KB article 2674317. Capabilities introduced in CTP3 continue to deliver remarkable experiences in CTP4: 

• Enable self-service BI as a natural part of users day-to-day activities in Excel 2013:
• xVelocity integration: The xVelocity in-memory analytics engine that underpins Analysis Services is now natively baked into Excel. Excel users can import hundreds of millions of rows of data from multiple data sources (databases, OData feeds, SharePoint lists, DataMarket, etc.), mash them up together and perform analysis using pivot tables, pivot charts and slicers.
• Power View integration: In O15, Office users will be able to interact with and report on their data directly from Excel and portray it with stunning visualizations. They can do this using the same tools and experience offered by Reporting Services Power View.
• PowerPivot integration: The PowerPivot Excel add-in now runs in Excel 2013 and enables Excel power users to model and enrich their data in the xVelocity engine. PowerPivot also includes a new data categorization and recommendation capability and a new improved DataMarket import experience.
• SharePoint 2013 (Excel Services), included in Office 365, leverages Analysis Services and Reporting Services to enable interactivity, sharing, collaboration and data refresh of workbooks with xVelocity data and Power View reports.
• Beyond the integration with Office, Power View in Reporting Services got some cool new abilities ranging from a new set of visualizations (map, pie charts), new formatting abilities (backgrounds and themes, images and URL support), Analytical capabilities (Hierarchies and KPI support) abilities, support for over 40 languages were added including right-left languages and many other small touch ups

In addition to these changes, SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 contains a number of security updates and fixes released in SQL Server 2012 CU1 & CU2.

To obtain SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 and the Feature Pack components updated in SP1, please visit the following download pages:

•               SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4

•               SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 Feature Pack