Southampton SQL Server User Group

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#SQLSat467 - Pre-con Spotlight | Building Blocks of BIML

This is the third in a series of blog posts about the pre-con sessions that we are running ahead of SQL Saturday 467 in Southampton in December 2015. In this post we will be focusing on Stacia's session on Building Blocks of BIML, so, over to a few words from Stacia.

Stacia Varga
Q: Stacia, can we have a quick background on who you are and what you do?
A: I am a business intelligence consultant by day and author by night, and sometimes I switch times for those roles. I also teach classes on BI, speak about BI, and generally live and breathe by the numbers.

Q: What do you enjoy most about training days like the one that you are delivering?
A: Working as a consultant, I solve a particular client's problem which is rewarding. However, I get exposed to many more different types of problems and ways that people use BI when I teach so I get to help a broader audience and I can take what I learned from that experience forward to the next group of people that I work with!

Q: What is BIML and why should we learn about it?
A: BIML makes Integration Services fun. Really! Honestly, as important as Integration Services is to a BI solution, I find it incredibly tedious to build out packages. And tedious to update packages when the data warehouse schema changes - which happens often in the early design stages. With BIML, I can easily accommodate changes and blast out a new set of packages in seconds. I think that's a really good reason to learn about it! Why spend your time connecting tasks with arrows when you can instead devote your brainpower to solving problems?

Q: What will be one of the key things that the attendees will take away from your session?
A: The main take-away will be a set of BIML files that illustrates a basic framework for data warehouse design that covers many of the patterns attendees are likely to use. That means they don't have to start from scratch, but they'll have a set of templates that they can modify as needed and start working with BIML productively right away! And of course they'll get the training to understand how all those files work!


So just what is in the session;

It’s generally accepted that creating and maintaining ETL packages is one of the more time-consuming steps in the data warehouse development process. Which would you rather do with your time? Spend seemingly endless hours working through repetitive SSIS package development tasks and more hours tweaking those packages as schemas evolve? Or invest in a framework that gracefully adapts to changes and updates your package designs in minutes so you can spend your time solving bigger problems or expanding the scope of your data warehouse?. If you like the sounds of this then you can read the full abstract along with registration details by clicking the button below.

Eventbrite - Stacia Varga - Building Blocks of BIML

Hope to see you there.

John