Anything technical that piques my interest

Every blog needs to have a welcome post, so welcome! My name is Jessica Moss (could you tell from the title of the blog? ;) ), and I'm a Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors. I specialize in Integration Services but work with the entire BI suite of products. I'll mostly be posting about cool things I find in my BI adventures, tips and tricks, and anything technical that piques my interest. I would love to hear from you in the form of comments and/or questions. Enjoy!

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SQL Server 2016 versus 2014 Business Intelligence Features

Hello, SQL Server 2016 Yesterday, Microsoft announced the release of SQL Server 2016 on June 1st of this year: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/05/02/get-ready-sql-server-2016-coming-on-june-1st/ . Along with performance benchmarks and a description of the new functionality, came the announcement of editions and features for the next release. Good-bye, Business Intelligence Edition The biggest surprise to me was the removal of the Business Intelligence edition that was initially introduced in SQL Server 2012. Truthfully, it never seemed to fit in the environments where I worked, so I guess it makes sense. Hopefully, fewer licensing options will make it easier for people to understand their licensing and pick the edition that works best for them. Feature Comparison Overall, the business intelligence services features included with each edition for SQL Server 2016 are fairly similar to SQL Server 2014. Nothing has been "...

Is Data Science a Buzzword? aka: My first Coursera Course

Data science and data scientists are all the rage right now in the information technology space. Every company wants one; every job candidate touts they are one. But what actually does that mean to companies and potential employees? I decided to take a course on data science to see if I could find out! My co-worker, Gabriella Melki, recommended the Coursera Data Science specialization by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The entire specialization contains a set of 9 courses, but you can take each one individually. I started with the first course, called "The Data Scientist's Toolbox". Over the four week timeframe, I was able to view lectures and perform the assignments at my own pace. I've listed below my thoughts on the course and what I learned about data science. Week 1: Introduction to Data Science Data science is about data , specifically about answering questions, and science , following a method to discover an answer. A data scientist is the ...

Using Power BI Custom Visualizations

Power BI ( https://powerbi.microsoft.com ) is Microsoft’s tool that provides fast analysis and reporting to developers and business users. Microsoft releases features on a monthly basis to this tool, so this post may be out of date before it’s even published! One of the more recent releases includes the ability to create and publish custom visualizations for use by others. Power BI Visuals Gallery The Power BI Visuals Gallery is where you can publish, search, and download custom visuals for use in Power BI Desktop and the Power BI website. People in the community and Microsoft have published visualizations that enhance the dashboard experience and still interact with the other visualizations as though they came from out-of-the-box! (On a side note, do we need to stop saying out-of-the-box now that everything is cloud-first…) The types of visuals run the gamit from charts, graphs, animations, and slicers. Searching for a Custom Visual To start, go to the Pow...

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