RESTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Learning Tree International (NASDAQ:LTRE – News) has announced the
introduction of two new courses. SQL
Server 2012: Administration Skills Upgrade and SQL
Server 2012: Business Intelligence Skills Upgrade
are skills upgrade SQL Server courses that provide the knowledge
required to effectively migrate to SQL Server 2012. Participants will
learn how to take advantage of the new features in SQL Server 2012.

“These hands-on courses allow participants to upgrade their skills in
order to leverage the enhanced features of SQL Server 2012, and were
specifically developed for those migrating from SQL Server 2008 or SQL
Server 2005. Participants learn more by actually using the features in
relevant exercises and are better able to apply what they’ve learned as
soon as they are back at work,” said Jennifer Urick, Vice President of
Product Development for Learning Tree International.

SQL
Server 2012: Administration Skills Upgrade

This skills upgrade SQL Server course provides practical, hands-on
exercises that help administrators learn SQL skills that will enable
them to migrate to SQL Server 2012. Participants will be taught the
skills and knowledge they need to take advantage of the new features in
SQL Server 2012. This course provides participants with the ability to
build database availability solutions and exploit the new, upgraded
administrator tools to gain maximum benefit for their organizations.

Hands-on exercises include:

• Leveraging the new SQL Server 2012 administrative features
• Building database high availability solutions with AlwaysOn groups
• Implementing user-defined server roles to delegate responsibilities
• Taking advantage of the FileTable capabilities for storing large
  object data
• Configuring a contained database to achieve deployment flexibility
• Creating a columnstore index to improve decision support query
  performance

SQL
Server 2012: Business Intelligence Skills Upgrade

SQL Server 2012 provides the latest advances necessary for
administrators and developers to build cutting-edge business
intelligence (BI) systems and critical reports. In this hands-on course,
participants are taught the upgraded SQL Server skills necessary to take
advantage of the new business intelligence tool capabilities in SQL
Server 2012, which include enhancements in data models, analytical
features and self-service reporting. These new features bring BI tools
to the end user.

Hands-on exercises include:

• Maximizing data warehouse performance with specialized indexes
• Customizing SSIS packages with new toolbox components
• Designing and deploying a SQL Server 2012 tabular model database
• Building a Excel PowerPivot workbook from an SSAS Tabular database
• Creating Project Crescent reports for SharePoint

Learning Tree will begin presenting SQL
Server 2012: Administration Skills Upgrade at its
education centers in May, 2012. The current schedule includes the
following:

Ottawa, ON — May 23-25, 2012
Washington, DC (Alexandria, VA) — July
11-13, 2012
Washington, DC (Reston, VA) — July 25-27, 2012
Toronto,
ON — August 29-31, 2012
New York, NY — September 26-28, 2012

Learning Tree will begin presenting SQL
Server 2012: Business Intelligence Skills Upgrade centers
in August, 2012. The current schedule includes the following:

Washington, DC (Reston, VA) — August 15-17, 2012
Ottawa, ON —
September 12-14, 2012
New York, NY — September 26-28, 2012
Toronto,
ON — October 3-5, 2012

Learning Tree is also scheduling the following SQL Server 2012 courses
in June 2012:
SQL
Server 2012: A Comprehensive Hands-On Introduction
SQL
Server 2012 Database Administration: Hands-On

There are three ways for participants to attend these courses:

1. In-class at a Learning Tree Education Center

2. Live, online via Learning
Tree AnyWare™ — our online delivery system that allows participants
to experience every aspect of a live course from their workplace, home
or anywhere

3. On-site as a private, customized event, delivered by Learning
Tree at a client facility of choice

For more information and the latest course dates and locations, call
1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733) or visit
us online.

About Learning Tree International

Learning Tree International is a leading global provider of highly
effective, hands-on training to information technology professionals and
managers. Since 1974, over 65,000 organizations have relied on Learning
Tree to enhance the professional skills of more than 2.1 million
employees. Learning Tree develops, markets and delivers a broad,
proprietary library of instructor-led courses focused on web
development; IT security; project management; operating systems;
databases; networking; software development and leadership and business
skills. Courses are presented globally at Learning Tree Education
Centers, on site at client facilities, and can be attended via Learning
Tree AnyWare^™, the Company’s proprietary technology that
connects participants via the web to the actual classroom, from their
workplace or home. For more information about our products and services,
call 1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733), visit www.learningtree.com,
follow @LearningTree on Twitter,
or visit Learning Tree International’s Facebook
fan page.

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/learning-tree-international-introduces-two-140000641.html

DSCallards has signed up with the Actian Corporation.

The agreement between the provider of Business Intelligence (BI) products and the analytical database company, which created Vectorwise, will complement DSCallards existing reseller agreement with BI product Yellowfin.

It means that the pair will be able to offer partners “a total business analytics package”, at a price point which is claimed to  increase the accessibility of reporting and analytics.

As a result of DSCallards experience in BI, the pair also claim that they will be able to support an underserved majority of companies in the UK where high-end analytical products are too costly and lower end products aren’t strong enough.

Adrian Handley, managing director, DSCallards, said: “We’re very excited about our partnership with Actian and that in Vectorwise, we now have a solution that will help our customers to rapidly zero-in on the information they need – without wasting time sifting through vast amounts of irrelevant data.”.

“With Vectorwise and Yellowfin BI, we have the perfect marriage of speed and ease-of-use that can benefit everyone in the organisation, not just a select few. The result is instant answers to complex queries and better decision-making across the enterprise.”

Steve Shine, CEO of Actian returned the praise adding: “It is not a question of how you store or analyse your large data volumes these days, it is how quickly you can act upon the intelligence and insight you can get from your data.

“The two-pronged approach of using our database, Vectorwise, as the back end, and Yellowfin’s BI layer at the front end, will not only give enterprises turbo-charged business analytics at breakneck speed, but also the chance to take action on their Big Data.”

He said that by working with DSCallards to take this proposition to market, the pair were set for immediate growth. This, he said was because DSCallards could complement the products “with their expertise and experience”.

The announcement has been made ahead of a joint launch event that takes place on July 3rd, 2012 at IBM South Bank, London.

Article source: http://www.channelbiz.co.uk/2012/05/17/dscallards-signs-reseller-partner-agreement-with-actian-corporation/

• CIO.in
• News
• Enterprise BI Models Undergo Radical Transformation

The other trend is the increasing availability of tools that allow companies to more easily aggregate and analyze large data sets. Many of the tools are designed for handling big data and incorporate capabilities such as in-memory databases, NoSQL support, data visualization, associative searches, and natural language processing, all of which allow companies to analyze data more quickly and easily than before.

Article source: http://www.cio.in/news/enterprise-bi-models-undergo-radical-transformation-261702012

Pittsburgh-based SDLC Partners, LP provides deep business and technology expertise in three key areas – business transformation, business intelligence, and technology solutions. In each of these areas, SDLC helps companies gain efficiency, improve discipline, develop insight and enable organizational alignment, assisting their clients in achieving tangible objectives. They’re not just another consulting  firm. They go deeper than that, actually using business process coupled with  IT as a catalyst to develop better business strategies for their clients. SDLC can be called a business consulting firm with an emphasis on technology execution.

Principal Partners Christy Maruca, Scott Barnyak and Chris Simchick have created a collaborative approach  for engaging customers combined with a  highly experienced, management team and professional staff. “The idea and vision behind the company was based on the hypothesis that there was gap in the service base … within the IT consulting industry…a rather large fragmentation within a rather large and very proven industry.  We felt that we could blend certain components of highly valued services and value-oriented models with competencies that we were going to focus on as a company. This execution strategy still fits with the tenets and concepts that we focus on today,” says Simchick.

“The sweet spot that we focus on is achieving  alignment with our customers by partnering with  both business  and IT  to serve as the execution partner of choice. That was our vision in the beginning.  As our business has evolved, we’ve maintained a focus on  a balanced value model of being able to deliver high value to customers, employees and our company,” says Maruca.

Components that led to SDLC Partners’ success include an attention to business strategy, and delineating how SDLC can deliver successful outcomes for their clients who are rapidly changing and modernizing their businesses.  “We  have an investment mindset  and strategy. When we looked at the downturn of the economy, we.chose to invest more heavily. This was a critical point in the company’s history. We can look back and see that the investments we made in 2008 and 2009, produced significant growth in 2010 and 2011. ,” says Barnyak.

SDLC’s clients range from mid-market  to large fortune companies. Both the changing landscape of the health-care industry, a significant practice focus for SDLC, and the dynamics of an economy trying to recover  are accelerating client spending in some of the sectors that we service.  While the unsettled  economy hasn’t changed SDLC’s business strategy, the general sense of the principal partners is that the economy will continue to be slow to recover. “In the tech sector, and particularly in Pittsburgh, however, we are seeing a resurgence in spending, which we feel will fuel regional growth for us until broader industry growth returns ,” says Simchick.

For more information, please visit: www.sdlcpartners.com

Article source: http://www.thesuitmagazine.com/technology/businesstechnology/21720-technology-solutions-foster-business-intelligence.html

Two distinct approaches to presenting data graphically exist today—data visualization and data art—and rarely do the twain meet. They differ in purpose and in design. When we fail to distinguish them from one another, we not only create confusion, but do great harm as well.

There are as many definitions of data visualization as there are definers, but at the root of this term that has been around for many years is the goal that data be visualized in a way that leads to understanding. Whatever else it does, it must inform. If we accept this as fundamental to the definition of data visualization, we can judge the merits of any example above all else on how clearly, thoroughly, and accurately it enlightens.

By data art, I’m referring to visualizations of data that seek primarily to entertain or produce an aesthetic experience. It is art that is based on data. As such, we can judge its merits as we do art in general.

Either one, done well, is worthwhile, assuming that it fits the task at hand. If the task is to help a particular group of people understand something, then data art is not appropriate, no matter how well it is executed. If the task is to entertain or engage an audience in a particular emotional experience, then data visualization probably isn’t appropriate. If the situation requires that both objectives are achieved, then a deeply informing and aesthetically beautiful visualization would be in order. Although it is quite easy to make any data visualization aesthetically pleasing, it takes a great deal of skill as a visual designer and information communicator to make one beautiful.

People make better decisions when they’re based on understanding. For information to be understood, it must often be presented in visual form. This is because patterns, trends, outliers, and a sense of the whole as opposed to its parts require a picture for the human brain to see and comprehend. Data visualization is essential. Visualizing data effectively is vital. Anything less is frivolous, costly, and harmful.

How in particular is data art—visualizations that strive to entertain or to create aesthetic experiences with little concern for informing—harmful when it masquerades as data visualization?

1. It suggests that data cannot be visualized without training in the graphic arts. As such, it works against the democratization of data. In fact, anyone of reasonable intelligence and a little training can present data effectively. It’s vital that this ability spreads more broadly across the population, because it can play a role in making a better world.
2. It features ineffective practices as exemplars of data visualization. It encourages people to present data in ways that are difficult to perceive and understand simply because they are prettier or more entertaining, which is rarely relevant to the task.
3. It keeps the practice of data visualization spinning its wheels, never able to progress beyond the mistakes of the past. Best practices of data visualization have emerged through many years of research and experience. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santayana).

I am personally and painfully acquainted with each of these problems. For this reason, I try to differentiate data art from data visualization and encourage others to do so as well.

Take care,

Article source: http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=1245

The SQL Server 2012 upgrade white paper is now available from Microsoft.  I’m proud to have made a contribution and to work with these industry leaders.  This extensive 454 page guide was published and edited by Microsoft and written by mentors from SolidQ.  It is a valuable reference for administrators, developers and business intelligence professionals planning to upgrade solutions to the latest version of SQL Server.

Thanks and congratulations to the SolidQ authors:
Ron Talmage, Nigel Sammy , Allan Hirt, Herbert Albert, Antonio Soto, Danilo Dominici, Régis Baccaro, Milos Radivojevic, Jesús Gil, Dejan Sarka, Johan Åhlén, Simran Jindal, Paul Turley, Craig Utley, Larry Barnes, Pablo Ahumada

Download the SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide

Content:

• Upgrade Planning and Deployment
• Management Tools
• Relational Databases
• High Availability
• Database Security
• Full-Text Search
• Service Broker
• SQL Server Express
• Database Development Tools
• Transact-SQL Queries
• Spatial Data
• XML and XQuery
• CLR
• SMO
• BI Tools
• Analysis Services
• Integration Services
• Reporting Services
• Data Mining
• Other Microsoft Applications and Platforms

Article source: http://sqlserverbiblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/sql-server-2012-upgrade-technical-guide-is-available/