Denver SQL Server User Group - May 16, 2013

Last night I presented "Capture Change and Apply it with Change Data Capture and SSIS" at the Denver SQL Server User Group meeting as a representative of our sponsor for May, Pragmatic Works. Session went well, got some really good questions and comments to make the session even better which I will be working on before I present it again at the Midlands SQL Server User Group next month!

For those that want to use all of my sample code from the presentation, feel free to download it from the embedded link below and try it out on your own computer. The requirements for these samples to work are SQL Server 2012 Evaluation, Developer or Enterprise Editions, AdventureWorks2012 and AdventureWorks2012DW. Also as I mentioned in the session you must have full admin rights to the SQL Server instance that you are going to try and setup CDC on, so a local instance on your own workstation/VM is recommended.

Thanks again to all of those that attended the Denver SQL Server User Group meeting last night!

SQLSaturday News

SQLSaturday #190 in Denver on September 28th is going to host pre-cons on Friday, September 27th! This was something that the Denver SQL Server User Group wanted to do after the great success we had last year with SQLSaturday #169.

While we do charge for these pre-cons, we think that at $99 per person for a full day of training it is an amazing value. Since this is our first year offering pre-cons at our SQLSaturday event we didn't want to go overboard with offering too many options, so we selected 3 pre-cons that we think offer a great range of topics for different SQL Server Professionals (thanks to everyone that submitted pre-cons, we wish we could have hosted all of them). Below are topics and speakers that we have selected along with the links to the full abstract and registration page on EventBrite:

Real World SSIS: A Survival Guide by Tim Mitchell
SQL Server Internals from the Practical Angle by Dmitri Korotkevitch
Predictive Analytics in the Enterprise by Carlos Bossy

All 3 of these pre-cons will be all day on Friday, September 27th and the registration fee does include a continental breakfast, lunch, snacks and refreshments throughout the day. The location for the pre-cons is the same as last year's SQLSaturday in the Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church - Community Life Center (10150 E. Belleview Avenue, Englewood, CO 80111) and there will be wi-fi available to all attendees.

If you have any questions about the pre-cons, please email the event committee.

While I'm on the subject of SQLSaturday just wanted to remind everyone that I am presenting my "ABCs of CDC with SSIS 2012" session at SQLSaturday #200 in Philadelphia on June 1st, so please register if you are going to be in that area at that time (the registration is currently waitlisted, but please register as there might be cancellations and the organizers will keep you updated via email). I will actually be flying out to Philadelphia on the Wednesday before to spend some time with my family that lives in the area, so looking forward to some vacation time on the East coast before the SQLSaturday. Hope to see you all there!

ABCs of CDC with SSIS 2012 - Addendum

I have been presenting the "ABCs of CDC with SSIS 2012" session for a few months now at various User Groups and SQLSaturdays and I learn something new about CDC (Change Data Capture) and the other similar options available in SQL 2012 each time I present it. As I was searching for information the other day I discovered a feature that was delivered with the RTM (Release to Manufacture) version of SQL 2012 that I had not heard about before, Change Data Capture for Oracle by Attunity.

This feature is a way for SQL Server DBAs to get all of the benefits of CDC from Oracle databases. The executables for this feature are on the install media for SQL 2012 in the Tools\AttunityCDCOracle folder (available in both x64 and x86 versions). The 2 executables are AttunityOracleCdcDesigner.msi and AttunityOracleCdcService.msi. Both of these executables are installed on a Windows Server, not on the Oracle system itself (unless you are running Oracle on Windows). So the server that you are installing on needs to be able to connect to the Oracle database(s) that you are trying to capture data and changes on. The Service executable is the one that always runs on the Windows Server and pulls all of the changes from the Oracle database(s) to the Windows Server to be stored on a SQL Server instance in the same form that CDC on SQL Server stores changes. The Designer executable is the administration front-end for setting up the service, which will launch as an MMC (Microsoft Management Console) snap-in.

Once you have these changes in the SQL Server database, then you can use all of the same processes you use for SQL Server CDC data, including using the new CDC components in SSIS 2012.

For more details on getting this installed, this link will take you to the TechNet article covering this feature.

To see the applications in action, this link will take you to the video of a presentation done at PASS Summit 2011 by Matt Masson and representatives from Attunity (fast forward to around 10:50 to see this feature).

The best part of this is that since it is a built-in feature of SQL Server 2012, it's free to use with SQL Server 2012!