Magenic Company Blog

Today I would like to talk about columnstore indexing one of the many new features that stand out in latest release of SQL Server 2012. Columnstore indexes are primarily designed for use in dimensional data warehouses and data marts and are optimized to improve query performance from a star or similar join in some cases boosting execution times up to 100 times faster than a traditional row based index.

After the SSDT product shipped, I spent some time converting an existing project ( dbproj / Data Dude based project) to SSDT. Actually, I decided not to convert the project, even though I was prompted to do so. Instead, I decided to re-import the SQL 2012 database. My reason to do so was the fact that the old project was breaking down each table into multiple files, one per object.

As promised, we’re kicking off our blog series showcasing some of the great open source work being done by Magenic consultants. Jeff Ferguson, a principal consultant, will be the focus of this initial post. He has an awesome project he created called Gepsio.

If you follow mobile, you are quite aware of the recently wrapped Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There were many highlights far from our shores, though not nearly as sexy as in the US. But, remember… this is the “World” Congress after all. None the less, even in the announcing of devices like the Samsung Galaxy Beam (easily sharing video) and the HTC One series phone, Windows was a standout – not unlike they were at CES.

We’ve been keeping tabs on the Magenic MVPs for several months on our blog, and with good reason – their work to constantly better the technology community through sharing their expertise is commendable. It deserves to be highlighted. But that’s just one element of Magenic’s Microsoft expertise.

As I sit at my computer, iPad, or smartphone – all of which act as windows to the world – I still find myself thinking domestically. Even though we have easy access to almost any spot on the globe it’s only natural to default to the familiar. How does this impact my market, my city, my street…me?

I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Enterprise Mobile Summit, or “EntMo” to organizers and other attendees. Magenic sponsored this intimate gathering of executives looking to share and learn more about mobile in business. And it was that intimacy that made this mobile gathering special.

Social media and mobile have collided on a road marked “Private Drive.” This week’s Path hubbub just brought a bit more attention to it.

I recently viewed an excellent presentation on some of the new features in SQL Server 2012 Integration Services such as shared connection managers, parameters, undo/redo in the designer, and some visual changes as well. One of the most significant changes that really caught my attention is Integration Services’ new Project Deployment Model, specifically the Integration Services catalog.

Extension methods provide the wonderful ability to extend the functionality provided by the .NET Framework. This entry uses extension methods to encrypt serialized data. The post assumes the reader knows what serialization is and understands the basics of programming in C#.