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Arshad Ali

Arshad Ali

I have been working with Microsoft for almost five years now and have 10+ years of extensive experience in the software industry. As a DB/BI Consultant, in an end-to-end delivery role, lately I have been working on a several enterprise scale data warehousing project for enabling\developing BI/Analytic solutions. I specialize in Database, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence application design, development and deployment, at enterprise level, with SQL Server, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, Service Broker, MDS, DQS, SharePoint and PPS. In past, I also performed performance optimization for several projects with significant performance gain.

I am a Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) in Microsoft SQL Server - Database Development 2008, Data Administration 2008 and Business Intelligence 2008.

In my earlier experience, I had also been developing applications in VB/ASP/.NET/ASP.NET/C# and am a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) for the .NET platform in Web/Windows/Enterprise.

I have presented in several technical events and have written 150+ technical and performance optimization technique articles on SQL Server and its related technologies which have been published on several sites.

On educational front, I am a Master in Computer Applications (MCA) and Master in Business Administration in IT (MBA-IT).

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft and help people and businesses make better use of technology to realize their full potential. The opinions mentioned herein are solely mine and do not reflect those of my current employer or previous employers.

2014 Awards

2013 Awards

2011 Awards

2010 Awards

Analysis Services Administration

Understanding the SQL Server 2012 BI Semantic Model (BISM) (11/19/2012)

Analysis Services Development

Comparing Data Warehouse Design Methodologies for Microsoft SQL Server (6/24/2013)
Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence - What, Why and How - Part 1 (6/7/2013)
Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence System Architecture - Part 2 (6/14/2013)

Analysis Services Performance

SQL Server Analysis Services Best Practices for Performance Optimization - Part 2 of 4 (3/8/2012)
SSAS - Best Practices and Performance Optimization - Part 1 of 4 (2/17/2012)
SSAS - Best Practices and Performance Optimization - Part 3 of 4 (3/26/2012)
SSAS - Best Practices and Performance Optimization - Part 4 of 4 (5/4/2012)

Analysis Services Tutorials

Getting started with Tabular Model in SQL Server 2012 - Part 1 (11/29/2012)
Getting started with the SQL Server 2012 Tabular Model - Part 2 (12/17/2012)

Application Development

Using Data Access Application Block DAAB in SQL Server Part 2 of 2 (7/8/2010)
Using SQL Server Data Access Application Block (DAAB) Part 1 of 2 (6/30/2010)
Writing a Data Access Layer (DAL) for SQL Server (6/7/2010)

Azure

Creating backups and copies of your SQL Azure databases (1/25/2011)
Getting started with SQL Data Sync (11/12/2013)
Getting Started with the SQL Azure Database Manager (2/3/2011)
Moving your database to the cloud with SQL Azure (11/5/2009)
SQL Azure enhancements with SQL Server 2008 R2 (12/10/2009)
SQL Server Backups and Restores Directly with Windows Azure Blob Storage Service (12/6/2013)
SQL Server Database Backup and Restore with Windows Azure Blob Storage Cloud Services using T-SQL Commands (11/25/2013)
Understanding SQL Data Sync for SQL Server (10/25/2013)
Windows Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore strategy (10/16/2013)

Backup

Backup and Restore SQL Server databases programmatically with SMO (10/1/2009)
Backup and Restore SQL Server databases with Azure cloud services and SMO (9/23/2013)
Backup and Restore with Cloud services (Windows Azure Blob Storage Service) using PowerShell (10/11/2013)

Change Data Capture

Using Change Tracking in SQL Server 2008 (8/19/2009)

Comparison Data and Objects

SQL Data Comparison with Visual Studio 2010 (8/23/2010)
SQL Schema Comparison with Visual Studio 2010 (8/12/2010)

Data Quality Services

Database Administration

Different strategies for removing duplicate records in SQL Server (1/8/2010)

Debugging

SQL Server 2008 TSQL Debugger is back in SSMS (2/25/2009)
SQL Server 2012 TSQL Debugging enhancements (7/1/2011)

Dynamic Management Views and Functions

Understanding Catalog Views in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 (2/3/2010)
Understanding Dynamic Management Views and Functions in SQL Server 2008 (4/1/2010)

Dynamic SQL

Dynamic SQL execution on remote SQL Server using EXEC AT (5/22/2009)

Error Handling

SQL Server 2012 THROW statement to raise an exception (7/14/2011)

Extended Events

An Overview of Extended Events in SQL Server 2008 (10/28/2010)
Getting Started with Extended Events in SQL Server 2008 (10/29/2010)

Fragmentation and Index Maintenance

Fixing Index Fragmentation in SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 (7/10/2009)
Index Fragmentation Report in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 (3/16/2009)

Functions - System

SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Ranking Functions DENSE_RANK and NTILE (3/1/2010)
SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Ranking Functions Row_Number and Rank (2/17/2010)
SQL Server 2008 Functions for Tables, Views, Indexes, Columns, Stored Procedures (5/12/2010)
SQL Server 2008 System Functions to Monitor the Instance, Database, Files, etc. (4/29/2010)

In-Memory OLTP

Getting started with Indexes on SQL Server Memory Optimized Tables (3/18/2014)
Getting started with SQL Server 2014 In-Memory OLTP (2/7/2014)
Getting started with the AMR tool for migration to SQL Server In-memory OLTP Tables (12/31/2013)
Overview of Applications, Indexes and Limitations for SQL Server 2014 In-Memory OLTP Tables (12/30/2013)
SQL Server 2014 In Memory OLTP Durability, Natively Compiled Stored Procedures and Transaction Isolation Level (1/20/2014)
SQL Server 2014 In-Memory OLTP Architecture and Data Storage (12/13/2013)

Indexing

SQL Server 2012 Column Store Index Example (10/12/2012)
SQL Server Filtered Indexes What They Are, How to Use and Performance Advantages (7/2/2009)

Integration Services Best Practices

SQL Integration Services SSIS Troubleshooting Best Practices (11/20/2009)
SQL Server Integration Services SSIS Best Practices (9/18/2009)
SQL Server Integration Services SSIS Design Best Practices (12/4/2009)
SQL Server Integration Services SSIS Performance Best Practices (10/27/2009)

Integration Services Configuration Options

Data tapping during SSIS package execution in SQL Server 2012 (1/15/2013)
SSIS Project Deployment Model in SQL Server 2012 (Part 1 of 2) (8/11/2011)
SSIS Project Deployment Model in SQL Server 2012 (Part 2 of 2) (8/23/2011)

Integration Services Control Flow Transformations

SQL Server Integration Services SSIS FTP Task for Data Exchange (2/15/2013)
Transfer Database Task and Transfer SQL Server Objects Task in SSIS (7/19/2010)
Transfer SQL Server Jobs Task and Transfer SQL Server Logins Task in SSIS (8/4/2010)

Integration Services Data Flow Transformations

SSIS Multicast Transformation vs Conditional Split Transformation (6/28/2010)

Integration Services Development

Creating SSIS Package Templates for Reusability (1/2/2013)
SQL Server 2012 SSIS Enhancements Part 1 of 2 (9/1/2011)
SQL Server 2012 SSIS Enhancements Part 2 of 2 (9/14/2011)

Integration Services Email

Sending email from SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) (4/16/2009)
Sending HTML formatted email in SQL Server using the SSIS Script Task (5/18/2009)

Integration Services Excel

Importing Data From Excel Using SSIS - Part 1 (9/20/2012)
Importing Data From Excel Using SSIS - Part 2 (10/2/2012)

JOIN Tables

SQL Server CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY (1/15/2017)
Understanding SQL Server Physical Joins (9/16/2010)

Master Data Services

Excel add-in for SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services - Part 1 (8/23/2012)
Let's Explore Excel add-in of Master Data Services of SQL Server 2012 - Part 2 (8/27/2012)

Microsoft Excel Integration

Creating Power View Reports in Excel 2013 (8/27/2013)
Getting started with Power View Reports with SharePoint, Excel and SQL Server (8/2/2013)
Teach Business Users How To Create Power View Reports With SQL Server Data Sources (8/5/2013)

Paging

SQL Server 2012 Server Side Paging (7/7/2011)

Professional Development Interview Questions BI

SSIS Architecture and Internals Interview Questions (1/2/2012)
SSIS Interview Questions - Part 1 (11/23/2011)
SSIS Interview Questions for Basic Concepts and Event Logging (12/6/2011)
SSIS Interview Questions for Data Profiling, Protection Level and Package Configuration (2/3/2012)
SSIS Interview Questions for Memory Management and Deployment (1/13/2012)
SSIS Interview Questions on Transactions, Event Handling and Validation (12/12/2011)

Reporting Services Overview

SQL Server Reporting Services vs. PerformancePoint Services (8/10/2012)

Resource Governor

Handling workloads on SQL Server 2008 with Resource Governor (4/1/2009)

Scripts

Iterate through SQL Server database objects without cursors (12/21/2009)

Service Broker

Event Notifications in SQL Server for Tracking Changes (9/27/2010)
SQL Server Service Broker Poison Message Handling (3/16/2011)

Sharepoint

Installing and Configuring Windows SharePoint Service (WSS) 3.0 (7/8/2010)
Understanding WSS 3 and MOSS 2007 (7/7/2010)

SQL Server Agent

Running a SSIS Package from SQL Server Agent Using a Proxy Account (11/11/2010)

SQL Server Configurations

Understanding SQL Server Net Libraries (3/8/2011)

SQL Server Management Objects SMO

Generate Scripts for database objects with SMO for SQL Server (9/9/2009)
Getting started with SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) (8/28/2009)
Transfer SQL Server database schema objects and data with SMO (12/29/2009)

SQL Server Management Studio

Getting started with Code Snippets feature of SQL Server 2012 (6/22/2011)
SQL Server Management Studio keyboard shortcuts (Part 1 of 2) (6/1/2011)
SSMS keyboard shortcuts (Part 2 of 2) (6/9/2011)

T-SQL

Using MERGE in SQL Server to insert, update and delete at the same time (3/10/2009)

Testing

Generating SQL Server Test Data with Visual Studio 2010 (12/23/2010)
SQL Server Unit Testing with Visual Studio 2010 (12/16/2010)

XML

Importing and Processing data from XML files into SQL Server tables (3/19/2013)

More SQL Server Solutions