SQL Server 2012 Integration Services introduces an innovative approach to deploying SSIS projects, known as Project Deployment Model. This is the default and recommended deployment technique, due to a number of benefits it delivers (such as, the ability to centralize management of package properties across deployed projects, as well as monitor and log package execution performance and progress). However, even though the new model has become the recommended and default configuration for new packages created using SQL Server Data Tools, the traditional, package-based methodology remains available and supported. More importantly, in some scenarios, it might be considered a more viable option, since it allows for separation of SQL Server Database Engine and SQL Server Integration Services roles, yielding performance benefits and facilitating a distributed extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) activities. Project Deployment Model, on the other hand, requires SSIS to be collocated on a SQL Server 2012 instance, due to its dependency on SSIS catalog. We will discuss its characteristics and walk through its implementation in this post.

Reporting Services 2008 for Internet deployment

The deployment method available from a SQL Server Data Tools-based project is directly dependent on the model employed during its creation (it is also possible to switch between two models after a project is created by applying a conversion process, which is invoked from the Project menu in SQL Server Data Tools). Effectively, in order to use the traditional package deployment mechanism, you will need to first ensure that your project is based on the package deployment model, which you can easily identify by checking its label in the Solution Explorer window.

In addition, you will also have to modify default project properties. To access them, right-click on the node representing the project in the Solution Explorer window and select the Properties entry from its context sensitive menu. In the resulting dialog box, switch to the Deployment section, where you will find three settings displayed in the grid on the right hand side:

AllowConfigurationChanges – a Boolean value (i.e. True, which is the default, or False) that determines whether it will be possible to choose package configurations during its deployment and assign values of properties or variables they reference.

CreateDeploymentUtility – a Boolean value (True or False, which is the default) that indicates whether initiating the project build will result in the creation of its Deployment Utility.

DeploymentOutputPath – a path that points to the file system folder where the Deployment Utility will be created. The path is relative to the location where project files reside (and set, by default, to bin\Deployment).

Set the value of the CreateDeploymentUtility property to True and modify AllowConfigurationChanges according to your requirements (e.g. set it to False if your project does not contain any package configurations or you want to prevent their modifications during deployment). Next, start the build process (using the Build item in the top level main menu of SQL Server Data Tools), which will populate the output folder (designated by DeploymentOutputPath parameter) with the .dtsx package file (or files, depending on the number of packages in your project), an XML-formatted Deployment Manifest file (whose name is constructed by concatenating the project name and .SSISDeploymentManifestsuffix) and, potentially, a number of other, project related files (representing, for example, custom components or package configurations).

The subsequent step in the deployment process involves copying the entire content of the Deployment Output folder to a target server and double-clicking on the Deployment Manifest file at its destination. This action will automatically launch the Package Installation Wizard. After its first, informational page, you will be prompted to choose between File system and SQL Server deployments.

The first of these options creates an XML-formatted file (with extension .dtsx) in an arbitrarily chosen folder. If the project contains configuration files (and the AllowConfigurationChanges project property was set to True when you generated the build), then you will be given an option to modify values of properties included in their content. At the end of this procedure, the corresponding .dtsConfigfiles will be added to the target folder.

The second option, labeled SQL Server deployment in the Package Installation Wizard relies on a SQL Server instance as the package store. Once you select it, you will be prompted for the name of the server hosting the SQL Server Database Engine, an appropriate authentication method, and a path where the package should be stored. If you want to organize your packages into a custom folder hierarchy, you will need to pre-create it by connecting to the Integration Services component using SQL Server Management Studio. In case your package contains additional files (such as package configurations), you will also be given an opportunity to designate their location (by default, the wizard points to Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Packagesfolder).

In either case, you can decide whether you want to validate packages following their installation (which will append the Packages Validation page to the Package Installation Wizard, allowing you to identify any issues encountered during deployment). In addition, when using SQL Server deployment, you have an option to set a package protection level (resulting in assignment of ServerStorage value to the ProtectionLevel package property). When deploying to file system, this capability is not available, forcing you to resort (depending on the deployment target) to either NTFS permissions or SQL Server database roles for securing access to your packages and sensitive information they might contain.

Just as in earlier versions of SQL Server, local SQL Service Integration Services 11.0 instance (implemented as the MSDTSServer110 service) offers the ability to manage packages stored in the MSDB database and file system, providing you with additional benefits (such as monitoring functionality), which we will discuss in more detail in our upcoming articles. In the case of MSDB storage, this is accomplished by following the SQL Server deployment process we just described and is reflected by entries appearing under the MSDB subfolder of the Stored Packages folder of Integration Services node when viewed in SQL Server 2012 Management Studio. In the same Storage Packages folder, you will also find the File System subfolder containing file system-based packages that have been identified by the SSIS service in the local file system. By default, the service automatically enumerates packages located in Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Packages directory, however, it is possible to alter this location by editing the Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Binn\MsDtsSrvr.ini.xml file and modifying the content of its StoragePath XML element. Incidentally, the same file controls other characteristics of MSDTSServer110 service, such as, package execution behavior in scenarios where the service fails or stops (by default, the execution is halted) or location of target SSIS instances (defined using the ServerName XMLelement).

While the Package Installation Wizard is straightforward to use, it is not well suited for deploying multiple packages. This shortcoming can be remedied by taking advantage of the DTUtil.exe command line utility, which in addition to its versatility (including support for package deployment and encryption), can also be conveniently incorporated into batch files. Its syntax takes the form DTUtil /option [value] [/option [value]] …, pairing option names with the values associated with them. For example, /SQL, /FILE, or /DTS options designating the package storage type (SSIS Package Store, File System, and MSDB database, respectively) can be combined with a value that specifies package location (as a relative or absolute path). By including COPY, MOVE, DELETE, or EXISTS options (with a value identifying package location) you can effectively copy, move, delete, or verify the existence of packages across all package stores.

In conclusion, the traditional package deployment methods available in earlier versions of SQL Server Integration Services are still supported and fully functional in the current release. However, in most scenarios, you should consider migrating your environment to the latest Project Deployment Model due to a wide range of advantages it delivers.

As cloud technology has matured, what was once an IT paradigm shift has triggered a business paradigm shift. The flexibility, immediacy, scalability and affordability of virtualization technologies have become not just an IT advantage, but a real competitive advantage for businesses. What are needed now are cloud solutions that are built to be business-friendly.

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HostForLife.eu service is No #1 Top Recommended Windows and ASP.NET Hosting Service in European continent. Their services is ranked the highest top #1 spot in several European countries, such as: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and many top European countries. For more information, please refer to http://www.microsoft.com/web/hosting/HostingProvider/Details/953.

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With three data centers that are located in different region, HostForLife.eu commits to provide service to all the customers worldwide. They hope they can achieve the best Windows and ASP.NET Hosting Awards in the World by the end of 2013.

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HostForLife.eu is Microsoft No #1 Recommended Windows and ASP.NET Hosting in European Continent. Their service is ranked the highest top #1 spot in several European countries, such as: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and many top European countries.

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DotNetNuke 7 is coming with new features and more productive. It is also claimed more advanced development framework to date. It comes with support of active directory and ShrePoint Lists.

Following are new features added

Installing Takes Just A Few Clicks 
With the updated look and fill, DNN 7 installation completes in few steps with simplified install process. Even it is quick, it allows you to configure advanced features.

Optimized Control Panel Experience
DotNetNuke 7 comes with new control panel. Each menu have been updated to offer more inituitive experience. End Users can personalize the menu by creating their own bookmarks within menu. The Modules, Pages and Users menu items provide quick access to common features in those areas.

Share Content Across Multiple Sites
DotNetNuke 7 allows you sharing same module on multiple portals/sites within same DotNetNuke instace. It will make easy to share same HTML content accross site. 

Drag And Drop Is Better Than Ever
You can now drag modules between panes and from the control panel to a pane while in edit mode.  Drag and Drop allows page designers to quickly and easily add content and arrange it on a page however they like.  

Enhanced SharePoint Support and Active Directory Simplifies User Authentication

SharePoint List support and Active Directory are added to Enterprise DNN 7. User can login their Active Directory Credentials.
DotNetNuke 7.0 extends your SharePoint investment by adding support for popular SharePoint Lists in our Microsoft SharePoint Connector.

You can get all the new features above as low as €2.45/month at HostForLIFE.eu.

Deploying a web project with all its correct dependencies is not a trivial task. Some of the assets which need to be considered during deployment are:

• Web Content (.aspx, .ascx, images, xml files, PDBs, Binaries etc)
• IIS Settings (Directory browsing, Error pages, Default Documents etc)
• Databases that the web project uses
• GAC Assemblies and COM components which the web project depends upon
• Registry Settings that may be used within the web project
• Security Certificates
• App Pools

In an enterprise environment a web application with all of its dependencies needs to move across various environments before being finally being deployed to a production server.  A typical set of transition servers are development, testing/QA, staging/pre-production and production.  Also on the production environment there are web farms where these webs need to be replicated.  Today doing all these things is more or less a manual process and involves a tons of documentation that both developers and server admins have to deal with.  Even with all the documentation the steps are certainly very much prone to errors.

To aid all these scenarios we are introducing the concept of  a "Web Package". Web Package is an atomic, transparent, self describing unit representing your web which can be easily hydrated onto any IIS Web server to reproduce your web.  VS 2010 uses MSDeploy  to create the web package from your web application.

In today's post I will be primarily focusing on creating a web package from VS 2010 which has IIS Settings as well as web content.

Step 1: Configure your Web Application Project (WAP) to use IIS Settings

For this discussion we have BlogEngine.Web downloaded from codeplex and converted it into a WAP.  Then this project was opened in VS 2010  and the VS10 migration wizard moved the project into VS10 format.  Thanks to the multi-targeting  features in VS 2010 which can support .NET versions 2.0 till 4.0; hence it is up to you which Framework version you want to run your web against. 

Step 2: Configure IIS Settings in IIS Manager

Most IIS 7 web applications use IIS integrated pipeline which is configured with "Default App Pool" of IIS.  Blog Engine .web does not use integrated mode and will throw an error shown below if made to run under "Default App Pool".

To get rid of this error I changed the App Pool of this application to "Classic App Pool" and then the application runs great as shown below:

App Pool mapping is just one of the IIS setting which your app may use, there are various other IIS Settings which you can configure using IIS Manager (e.g. Default document, Error pages etc etc); all of these settings are relevant based on your application scenario... The good news is that VS 10 & MSDeploy will auto detect all the changes you make to the default IIS settings and pick it up for deployment...

Essentially, at the end of this step you should have your web application up and running with all the IIS settings configured in IIS Manager. 

Step 3: Configure Package Settings

In VS 2010 we have introduced one additional property page for WAPs called "Publish" as shown below:

Let us look at various properties of the this tab to understand how it works:

Configuration Aware Tab: Note that the Publish tab is build configuration aware:

The Publish tab is made configuration aware as deployment settings tend to change from environment to environment; for e.g. many a times developers want to deploy their “Debug” configuration on a Test Server and include PDBs as part of this deployment. When the same web is deployed in “Release” configuration on a production server the deployment may exclude PDBs. 

Items to Package/Publish – This section will help you decide what type of content you would really like to package/deploy.

- Types of Files: By default this option is set to "Only files needed to run this application" .  This is usually sufficient for your deployment as it includes all the files from your project except source code, project files and other crud files not required to be deployed...  But apart from that there are two additional options available as shown below...

"All files in this project" and "All files in this project folder" options are very similar to what Publish WAP options were in VS 2008

- Exclude Files from App_Data folder – “App_Data” folder is a special ASP.NET folder where many developers like to put their SQL Express DBs (.mdf/.ldf files), XML files and other content which they consider Data. In many situations on production web server a full version of SQL Server is available and using SQL Express is not all that relevant. In such scenario (and for the corresponding build configuration e.g “Release” ) a user can check the “Exclude Files from App_Data”.

- Exclude Generated Debug Symbols – It is important to understand that generation of debug symbols is different from deployment of the same. This check box will tell VS 10 whether you would like to package/deploy the already generated Debug Symbols.

Package Items

- IIS Settings  - Checking this checkbox informs VS10 that you are ready to take all of your IIS Settings configured for your application in IIS Manager as a part of your web package.  I am glad to tell you that IIS 5.1, IIS 6 as well as IIS 7 environments are supported as part of this feature hence whether you are working on XP, Win2K, Win2K3, Vista or Win2K8 you should have no issue with packaging IIS Settings...  

These setting includes the "App Pool mapping" your web is configured to run against (e.g. "Classic App Pool" mapping discussed in Step 2)

- Additional Settings -   The items in this grid are advanced properties.  It is still good to know about these coz it impacts what will be included in your package.  Most of the properties in this grid are related to the entire server and not just to your application so you should use them very carefully. 

Currently VS10 only displays "Application Pool Settings" but behind the scene it is possible to configure VS10 to support packaging root web.config, machine config , security certificates, ACLs etc…

Package Settings

- Create MSDeploy Package as a ZIP file - This checkbox allows you to decide whether you would like to create your web package as a .zip file or as a folder structure. If you are concerned about the size and are moving the web package around very often then I can see you using .zip format for the package; on the other hand if you care to compare two packages using diff commands (either of source control or independently) then I can see you using the folder format.

- Package Location - This is an important and required property as it defines the path at which Visual Studio will place your web package. If you choose to change this path make sure that you have write access to the location. Do note that the Package Location is modified based on whether you choose to create the web package as a .ZIP file or vs a folder structure.

- Destination IIS Application Path/Name - This property allows you to give IIS Application name that you will use at the destination Web Server.

- Destination Application Physical Path - One of the most important information which is embedded inside the web package is the physical location where the package should be installed. This property allows you to pre-specify this embedded information.  You will have an opportunity change both IIS Application Physical Path as well as Application Name at the time of deployment but in this property page you are given an opportunity to choose a default value.

Step 4: Create the "Web Package"

This is the last step in creating the web package and the simplest too...  The idea is that once you configure the above settings creating a package should be easy; in fact even if you do not go to the "Publish" tab we have tried to set smart defaults so that in most normal circumstances creating web package should be just the below two steps:

• Right Click on your "Project"
• Click on Package --> Create Package

Once you click on this command you should start getting output messages around your package creation pumped into your output window... 

When you see “Publish Succeeded” as below in the output window then your package is successfully created.

To access the package go to the location specified in the “Package Location” textbox. By default this is in obj/Configuration/Package folder under your project root directory (Configuration here implies Active Configuration like Debug/Release etc).

Note: "Create Package" command creates web package only for Active configuration. By default “Debug” is the active configuration inside Visual Studio. If you would like to change the Active configuration you can do so by using Build --> Configuration Manager.

You can certainly set properties for all available configurations by switching the configuration on top of the “Publish” tab but that action does not change the Active configuration

Finally, you can also automate creation of web packages via your team build environment as everything discussed above is supported via MSBuild Tasks.  In subsequent posts we will get into the details of these areas too...

Hope this helps... 

SharePoint Cloud hosting gives companies the ability to share data in real time. This makes it possible for employees to collaborate with each other and share data, content, ideas, essentially, whatever they’d like. This type of collaboration can occur between locations, departments and even time zones, which is in part, one of the reasons why it is in such high demand and companies are willing to make big-time investments in order to utilize it.

HostForLife.eu is only a few hosting providers in European region that supports SharePoint 2013 Hosting on a Cloud Server. Price from just €9.99/month, HostForLife.eu gives opportunity to everyone to try to host their SharePoint site on a cloud server.

When searching for SharePoint Cloud hosting, companies should be sure that whatever hosting company they choose to work with, is willing to create a system that is tailored-made to their particular needs, if necessary. Some hosting companies will allow businesses to pay as they go or give them the option of purchasing a license. It will also be extremely important that all of a business’ data is stored on servers that are secure.

The very best hosting companies will offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They will also provide around-the-clock monitoring by trained IT techs that are able to detect and address any issues that come up. Having around-the-clock support is very important and extremely valuable. Businesses must be extremely protective of their data. If it were to be lost or suddenly became inaccessible, this could cause a tremendous amount of problems and could even negatively affect a company’s bottom line.

Another feature of quality SharePoint Cloud hosting is built-in disaster recovery coupled with continuous backups and data protection. This will ensure that a company’s data is always protected even during inclement weather. Application access from anywhere on the globe is important as well, if the hosting company is based in a country different the one the client they are servicing is located.

SharePoint is a great data management system. In fact, it is one of the most utilized systems of its type. It is feature-packed and very robust. However, to get the most out of it, it is important that the company using it is well-studied in all things related to SharePoint, has undergone proper training and has good hosting. Cloud hosting provides businesses with essentially everything they need so that that their data management, courtesy of SharePoint, functions optimally.

Because small businesses are typically very dependent on being able to access their data, it is extremely important that they use the right hosting. Quality third-party, Cloud hosting will offer around-the-clock-support, qualified IT staff on hand to detect and fix any problems, continuous backups and disaster protection and recovery. This type of hosting is ideal and will help businesses keep their data and documents safe, secure and accessible

HostForLIFE.eu, the premier European Windows and ASP.NET provider proudly announces the immediate availability of Microsoft’s new SharePoint 2013 hosting. HostForLIFE.eu offers this new product at the amazing price, just only €9.99/month.

“SharePoint 2013 is really fantastic; it brings many exciting new features, like Microsoft App Store, SharePoint Designer 2013 support, the use of mobile smart devices. And what amazing here is you can find all this new functionality for only €9.99/month” Said Kevin Joseph, manager of HostForLIFE.eu. “These enhancements are fantastic and make the platform more user-friendly, scalable, modern, and powerful as a robust collaboration, social, and knowledge management platform for the enterprise.”

HostForLIFE.eu utilizes the newly-released Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 as the foundation for the plans. The base hosting plans specification have been architected to meet Microsoft recommended configurations for both SharePoint 2013 and SQL Server 2012 and will include SQL Server and disk configuration best practices identified by HostForLife’s database administrators to optimize SharePoint 2013 performance.

The HostForLIFE.eu SharePoint 2013 product is divided into SharePoint Foundation 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 hosting plan. SharePoint 2013 Foundation is the core platform of the product which comes with enhancements to the administration and user experience, plus new options for enterprise users to collaborate using social media features. SharePoint Server 2013 is basically Foundation with additional Enterprise services and functionality added on top. You will still get Central administration, basic search, document collaboration, and team sites with Foundation.

For additional information about SharePoint 2013 offered by HostForLIFE.eu, please visit http://www.hostforlife.eu.

About HostForLIFE.eu:

HostForLIFE.eu is European Windows Hosting Provider which focuses on Windows Platform only. We deliver on-demand hosting solutions including Shared hosting, Reseller Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and IT as a Service for companies of all sizes.

HostForLIFE.eu is awarded Top No#1 SPOTLIGHT Recommended Hosting Partner by Microsoft (see www.microsoft.com/web/hosting/HostingProvider/Details/953). Our service is ranked the highest top #1 spot in several European countries, such as: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and other European countries. Besides this award, we have also won several awards from reputable organizations in the hosting industry and the detail can be found on our official website.

Powerpivot has now become a native part of Excel 2013, which was available as a separate add-in in prior version. This very of powerpviot comes with few new inevitable enhancements like ability to edit tabular models. This is a very welcome news. But the news that I am not happy with is, there is also an add-in available for PowerView with Excel 2013.

After reading some of you might wonder why am I not happy with this news as this makes Excel a very powerful client tool as the reporting capabilities would get a silverlight based animatory touch. The reason is that as of this draft and to the best of my knowledge, PowerView is not available with SSRS 2012 native mode. It's a Sharepoint only available feature. In my opinion, it should be made available in BIDS as well as SSRS native mode too, in the form of an external add-in and rendering extension respectively.

Another thing that seems strange to me is why is PowerView add-in available as a COM add-in. I am not that deeply aware of office add-ins, but from a general development standpoint, from the name I understand that its a COM component. In .NET terms it's unmanaged code / component, instead of a .NET Framework based managed code. If that's the case, my curiosity asks why COM ?

An interesting outcome of this can be that Powerpivot in Excel 2013 would become the new BIDS as well as reports manager for PowerView based reports, instead of buying entire enterprise class license for better compressed reports, data alerts and powerview which are the major enhancements available in SSRS 2012 Sharepoint integrated mode.

One another such very interesting capability is provided by PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services, but its in CTP2. But even this application is available with Sharepoint only.

As we know, Visual Studio 2012 has been released on Aug 15, 2012 I just wanted to discuss about the new features of LightSwitch.

In Visual Studio 2012, LightSwitch is included as a core part and we can create the LightSwitch application from Visual Studio 2012 IDE. LightSwitch will be available as a Project Template group Node in the Visual Studio 2012.

New Lightswitch Architecture

Visual Studio 2012 LightSwitch has a lot of enhancements including OData Services which leads to define the new architecture for the LightSwitch Application Development. You can get more details about the LightSwitch Architecture, please have a look at MSDN.

New Enhancements in LightSwitch 2012

There are ton of new features included in the Visual Studio 2012 LightSwitch. We will briefly discuss about all the new features of the new enhanced LightSwitch.

1. Connecting with OData Services:

LightSwitch 2012 now supports Open Data Protocol Services.

2. Formatting Numbers & Dates:

We can easily format the Numbers and Dates using Format Pattern property in LightSwitch 2012. This Format Pattern Property is available only for the particular data types.

3. New Data Types in LightSwitch:

Visual Studio LightSwitch team has introduced two more Data Types namely Percent and Web Address. Here the Decimal will be treated as Percent business type and the String will be treated as Web Address.

4. Static Label & Image Control:

LightSwitch 2012 includes two more controls which can be used to display the content statically without binding data. These controls can be used to display the static texts about the organization and logo.

5. Improved Application Security:

In LightSwitch Business Application we can apply security by two ways like Forms Authentication and Windows Authentication, In Windows Authentication it is possible to provide the Roles & Permissions to Active Directory User Groups.

You can download the Visual Studio 2012 90 days trail version from the Microsoft site.

If you need LightSwitch hosting, please check our site at http://www.hostforlife.eu.

Facebox is a jQuery-based, Facebook-style lightbox which can display images, divs, or entire remote pages. And now, you can use it with your DNN module to make your DNN module more interactive. Today I would like to show you how to apply lightbox effect for some big image within dnn blog post. Note that we just demonstrated the process in Window Live Writer. Actually we also recommend that you should manage your posts with WLW, which will make your post management simply and easily. Now you just follow the simple steps below:

1) Open up your WLW and get started to write your post.

2) Just copy your big graphs or images into the content section of WLW and it will be scaled in to a little one. Also you can apply some options for some customized effects, like size, text wrapping, borders.



3) Set the option [Link to] as Source Picture and click the Options below. Then it should pop up the Source Picture Options window and there you can set it as follows and click "OK":



4) Switch the source tab at the left-bottom of content panel, find out the image tag section and insert the rel property for facebox detected. The following code should look like:



Okey, that’s all. Now the built-in facebox plugin will automatically attach the Facebook-style lightbox for your picture.

In the end I presented an illustration depicting a common scenario for DotNetNuke Deployment in the Enterprise.