You try to connect from a client using SQL Server (native) to the client to the server and receives the error message:

Connection fail: SQLState: 08001 SQL Server ERROR: 17 {Microsoft} {ODBC SQL . . . → Read More: SQL 2008 Hosting :: Why I Cant Connect to SQL 2008 R2?]]> Exactly when Microsoft changed the setting, I could not understand exactly – when reinstalling a named SQL Server 2008 R2 Express instance was the effect on each case:

You try to connect from a client using SQL Server (native) to the client to the server and receives the error message:

Connection fail:
SQLState: 08001
SQL Server ERROR: 17
{Microsoft} {ODBC SQL Server Driver} {TCP / IP Sockets} SQL Server does not
exist or access denied

First, we tested the following course:

• Remote connections are allowed?
• If port 1433 and 1434 in the firewall on the server open in depth?
• If you have TCP / IP protocol enabled in the client Configruation manager?

If this is done and the error persists, you should another look at the SQL Server Configuration Manager to throw.

“SQL Server Network Configuration”, “Protocols for <instance one can see that the dynamic port allocation is enabled:

Is in “TCP Dynamic Ports” is set to 0, the dynamic port is active on that IP.

But which port number, the dynamic port?

The number can be found if you scroll to the bottom of the screen shown above:

If you erase the “0″ from the “TCP Dynamic Ports” entries, you can each IP in “TCP Port” enter another fixed port (for example the well known 1433).

One can also easily change from “IPAll” (see screenshot) in “TCP Dynamic Ports” the desired item is then valid for all IPs.

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio and expand the SQL . . . → Read More: SQL 2008 Hosting :: Running SQL Server JOBS with different user accounts in SQL 2008]]> This post discusses about configuring different user account to JOB running in SQL Server 2008. By default SQL JOBs runs under service account that you have configured while installing the SQL Server. You can follow the below steps to change the user account that running under JOB

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio and expand the SQL Server Agent node and Select the JOB that you want to change the running account.

2. Double click the selected JOB then you will get the below dialogue

3. Select the Steps from the above window and click Edit to see the below properties window

4. Click the ellipses button right to Run as user and select the user from below window and say ok

Now your job will run under chosen user account. It is always recommended to run your SQL JOBS under one account rather putting to many user accounts for to many JOBS. This post is for the people who have the business reason and want to run under different user account.

Alternate background color of rows in a table make it easier to read horizontally. Also it makes report look and feel better. This is very common but simple task to achieve in SSRS report using expression.

Select the detail row of the data table in the layout tab.

Go to property window and select . . . → Read More: SSRS 2008 Hosting :: Conditional Formatting in SSRS 2008]]> Alternate Background Color in Tabular Report:

Alternate background color of rows in a table make it easier to read horizontally. Also it makes report look and feel better. This is very common but simple task to achieve in SSRS report using expression.

Select the detail row of the data table in the layout tab.

Go to property window and select expression of BackgroundColor and enter below expression:
=IIF(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2 = 0,"Transparent","#cdfcbe")

Now click and Preview the report:

Format Phone number using REGEX function:

Suppose you want to display Phone no in (ddd) ddd-dddd format instead of ddd-ddd-dddd. To do this, Right click on the required textbox –> click expression… and enter below expression.

=System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(Fields!Phone.Value, "(\d{3})[ -.]*(\d{3})[ -.]*(\d{4})", "($1) $2-$3")

Now click on Preview and see the report:

Changing Font Color dynamically:

Sometime we need to format data based on the their values. Below is an example for Base rate color selection:

To do this, Enter C (Currency format) in Format and below expression in Color property of BaseRate field:

=SWITCH(Fields!BaseRate.Value <= 15,"Green",

Fields!BaseRate.Value <= 25,"Blue",
Fields!BaseRate.Value <= 40,"Black",
Fields!BaseRate.Value > 40,"Red")

Now click on Preview and see the report:

Swapping Font Color and BackgroundColor:

Suppose you want to swap Font Color and BackgroundColor of Gender field. Use below expressions in BackgroundColor and Color properties respectively:

=IIF(Fields!Gender.Value = "M","Tomato","Teal")

=IIF(Fields!Gender.Value <> "M","Tomato","Teal")

Now click on Preview and see the report:

RDLC files are created by the Visual Studio 2005 version of Report Designer. 

RDL and RDLC are defined by an XML schema called the Report Definition Language

The C stands for Client-side processing. RDL stands for Report Definition Language.

Limitations of ReportViewer control:

Unlike the Report Server the . . . → Read More: SQL 2005 Hosting :: Using Report Service and Server Business Intelligence Development]]> RDL files are created by the SQL Server 2005 version of Report Designer. 

RDLC files are created by the Visual Studio 2005 version of Report Designer. 

RDL and RDLC are defined by an XML schema called the Report Definition Language

The C stands for Client-side processing. RDL stands for Report Definition Language.

Limitations of ReportViewer control:

Unlike the Report Server the ReportViewer control does not connect to databases or execute queries. Also, in local mode the only export formats available are Excel and PDF. (In remote mode all formats supported by the Report Server are available.) The ReportViewer control cannot be extended by adding custom renderers or custom report items.

Steps for using report service and Server Business Intelligence Development

Configure SQL Reporting Service with Reporting Service Configuration Manager

Steps for creating report definition file (rdl)

SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio from 

Start >> Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2005 >> SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio 

File >> New >> Project

Select “Report Server Project”

From Solution Explorer right click on the project and select “add new Item” 

Select “Report” from “add new item” dialogue box (name it report1.rds)

Now using same “add new item” dialogue box, add new “Data Source” (Name it datasourse1.rds)

Now in the Data tab, select “NewDataset…” and “Dataset” dialogue will be open.

Select “datasource1″ as data source that we have just created.

In the “command type ” dropdown, select “Text” if you want to right query directly(In the “Query string” text area) or select “Stored Procedure” and provide name of the SP in the “Query string” text area.

If you have SP with parameter then you can add report parameter from Report Menu and link it to the SP parameter from Dataset dialogue>parameter tab

Now from left side toolbox, from “Reports Item”, drag table and drop it to layout mode of report1.

A 3X3 table will be created where first row for header, second row for field, 3rd row for footer.

From the dataset pane left side of VS2008, from dataset1, drag field (for example firstname) and drop it to 2nd row of first column, so header name will automatically becomes same as the column name. Likewise drag and drop fields you want. Also you can create new columns if you have more than 3 fields by right clicking on the table and selecting “add new column”. Same way you can remove the column.

In the preview tab you can see the report preview.

Now you can use this report1.rdl to work with winform.

You can add this in your winform project and using report viewer we can open this report in the form.

To deploy the analysis services . . . → Read More: SQL Server 2008 R2 Hosting :: Chart Reports in SQL Server 2008 R2 reporting services]]> This post discuss about configuring the AdventureWorks Analysis Services Database in SQL Server 2008 R2. You can download the sample databases from here. By default when you install the setup you would not see the analysis services database, you need to do some configurations to get it appear in analysis services database.

To deploy the analysis services database perform the following steps:

1. Ensure that Analysis Services service account has got the access to the AdentureWorksDW2008R2 database.

2. Start the Business Intelligence Development Studio

3. Navigate to the sample databases installation location and open the AdeventureWorks.sln file. If you installed the sample databases in default location then path would be C:\programe files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Samples\Adventure Works 2008R2 Analysis Services Project\enterprise\Adventure Works.sln

4. After opening the solution, double click the “Adventure Works.ds”. Click the Edit…. button and supply the SQL Server name and database name. Click ok to save changes.

5. Right click on the solution explorer, choose properties. You will get the following dialogue box, change the target server property to your AS server name.

6. Right click the solution and click the Deploy Solution

This article will walk you through all new features that are introduced in SQL Server 2012 especially high availability. For guarding application databases in an enterprise . . . → Read More: SQL Server 2012 Hosting :: New Features SQL Server 2012]]> This latest release of the SQL Server presents new features and improvements that increase the power and efficiency of architects, developers, and administrators who design, develop, and maintain data storage systems.

This article will walk you through all new features that are introduced in SQL Server 2012 especially high availability. For guarding application databases in an enterprise environment from both downtimes, the main features AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AAG) feature is introduced in MS SQL Server 2012 and a number of other HA features.  

Always-On Availability Groups (AAG)

As for some Exchange administrators this feature is very similar to Database Availability Groups (DAG) in Exchange 2010. Configuring SQL 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups involves creating and constructing one or more availability groups. An availability group is a global container that defines a set user DBs (availability databases) to fail-over in case of disaster, and a set of database replicas to host multiple copies of each DB. An each group requires at least two replicas exist: the primary replica and one secondary replica. AlwaysOn Availability Groups offers a rich set of choices that increase database availability and that assist improved resource use. Below are a few feature sets of AAG:

• Numerous secondary replica copies: up to four secondary db copies.
• It allows control over the automatic failover process using flexible failover policy for each availability group.
• Provides secure, high performing transport to replicas via Encryption and compression.
• Other availability modes: Asynchronous-commit mode and Synchronous-commit mode
• Several failover modes: automatic failover, planned manual failover, and forced manual failover. For more information
• Through better source utilization of spare hardware permits Active secondary which increase IT efficiency and reduce cost.
• Provides fast application-failover via Availability group listeners.
• Automatic page healing for protection against page corruption.
• Forcing WSFC quorum

Always-On SQL Failover Cluster

Failover clusters across subnets
A SQL Server multisubnet failover cluster is a design where all failover cluster node is connected to a different networks or different set of networks. These networks can be in the same physical location or in phsicallydispersed . Clustering across global sites is sometimes referred to as Stretch-clusters. As there is no need for shared storage that all the nodes can access, data should be replicated among the data storage on the multiple networks. With data replication, there is further than one copy of the data available. Therefore, a multi-subnet failover cluster offers a disaster recovery solution in addition to HA.

Flexible policy for cluster health detection
In a SQL Server failover-cluster instance, only one node can own the cluster which is sometimes known as a single copy cluster. The client demands are served through this primary node for that failover cluster instance. In the case of a hardware failure, the group ownership is moved to another node in the failover cluster node. In this case the process is called failovering over a cluster.

Indirect checkpoints
This new feature offers a database-specific substitute to automatic checkpoints, which are shaped by a server property. An indirect checkpoint implements a new checkpointing formula for the DB Engine. This offers a more accurate assurance of database recovery time in DR event or a failover than is provided by automatic-checkpoints. To guarantee that database recovery does not top allowable downtime for a given db, you can stipulate the maximum acceptable downtime for that database.

What is Web Deploy 2.0?

Web Deploy (Web Deployment Tool) simplifies . . . → Read More: HostForLife.EU now supports Web Deploy 2.0 Hosting]]> HostForLIFE.EU has supported Web Deploy technique on all our hosting plans. With a web deploy technique, a customer can efficiently synchronize sites, applications or servers across your IIS 7.0 server farm by detecting differences between the source and destination content and transferring only those changes which need synchronization.

What is Web Deploy 2.0?

Web Deploy (Web Deployment Tool) simplifies the migration, management and deployment of IIS Web servers, Web applications and Web sites. Administrators can use command-line scripting with Web Deploy to synchronize IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 servers or to migrate an IIS 6.0 server to IIS 7.0. Web Deploy Tool also enables administrators and delegated users to use IIS Manager to deploy ASP.NET and PHP applications to an IIS 7.0 server.�

Web Deploy 2.0 Features             

- Seamless integration with IIS 7.0 Manager and Visual Studio 2010 interface for creating packages and deploying them onto a machine, both locally and remotely
- Seamless integration with the Web Platform Installer to install community web applications simply and easily.
- Web application packaging
- Web application deployment
- Web server migration and synchronization
- In addition to the IIS Manager and Visual Studio 10, tasks can be performed using the command-line or public APIs.

In this article, I’ll explain how to create a Custom Palette and how to use that palette in a Pie Chart.

In the above screen-shot, I am using color Blue, Red, Teal and Gold for . . . → Read More: SSRS 2008 Hosting :: Adding Custom Color in SSRS Chart Reports]]> Do you ever come across a requirement where you need to use user defined colors instead of default colors in a chart (for example Pie Chart).

In this article, I’ll explain how to create a Custom Palette and how to use that palette in a Pie Chart.

In the above screen-shot, I am using color Blue, Red, Teal and Gold for the first four values of the Period column and same colors are used in Pie Chart as well.

Here are the steps to achieve this task:

STEP1:
Create your custome color palette in the report using Custom Code in your report. To do so, click Report => Report Properties => Code and copy below code:

Private colorPalette As String() = { “Blue”, “Red”, “Teal”, “Gold”, “Green”,”#A59D93″, “#B8341B”, “#352F26″, “#F1E7D6″, “#E16C56″, “#CFBA9B”}

Private count As Integer = 0
Private mapping As New System.Collections.Hashtable()

Public Function GetColor(ByVal groupingValue As String) As String
   If mapping.ContainsKey(groupingValue) Then
      Return mapping(groupingValue)
   End If
   Dim c As String = colorPalette(count Mod colorPalette.Length)
   count = count + 1
   mapping.Add(groupingValue, c)
   Return c
End Function

You can define your own colors in the above function.

STEP2:
In the Pie Chart, select Series Properties and select the Fill option from left side as shown below:

Now write following expression in the Color expression:

=code.GetColor(Fields!Year.Value)

Here Fields!Year.Value is a field of dataset which is used as Chart Category fields.

STEP3:
In the left most column of the tabular report, insert character █ and in the color property of the textbox write following expression:

=code.GetColor(Fields!Year.Value)

Here I am considing that tabular report is grouped on Fields!Year.Value field.

Thats it. Click on the preview and enjoy your custom colors in charting.

Cheers!!!