Glossary
An end- user -initiated operation that, for example, can launch another report, open a URL, or transfer focus to a bookmark. A function that performs a summary calculation on a series of data and returns a single value. Each aggregate function uses the Scope parameter, which defines the scope (such as grouping, data set, or data region) in which the aggregate function is performed. A managed application module that contains class metadata and managed code. The process of validating that the user attempting to connect to Reporting Server is authorized to do so. The operation that verifies the permissions and access rights granted to a user to securable report items, such as folders, reports , (report) models, resources, and shared data sources. A set of rules that determines how strings of character data are compared, ordered, and presented. Character data is sorted using collation information, including locale, sort order, and case sensitivity. In a table, the area in each row that stores the data value for some attribute of the object presented in the table. For example, in an Employee table a FirstName column would contain the first name of an employee. The engine that supplies managed code with services such as cross-language integration, code access security, object lifetime management, and debugging and profiling support. In SSRS, a name/value pair(s) that controls certain behaviors of SSRS, such as direct SSRS to load specified extensions or to use a specified encryption key. An interprocess communication (IPC) linkage established between a SQL Server application and an instance of SQL Server. A string supplied to a data provider that provides information sufficient to connect to the data. An example of a connection string is: Data Source=MyServer\MyInstance;initial catalog=AdventureWorksDW . A group of symbols that represents a specific data value. For example, 'abc' is a character string constant, '123' is an integer constant, 'April 19, 1999' is a date-time constant, and '0x02FA' is a binary constant. A set of data that is organized and summarized into a multidimensional structure defined by a set of dimensions and measures. A subset of the contents of a data warehouse. A data mart tends to contain data focused at the department level, or on a specific business area. A component in Reporting Services that provides query processing and data retrieval for a data source type that can be used in a report. A set of data that is the result of executing T-SQL SELECT, Data Mining Expressions (DMX), or Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) statements. An object containing information about the location of data. Data source leverages a connection string. See connection string An abstraction layer for a data source. Data Source view acts similarly to SQL Server view and allows joining multiple tables from a data source, creating calculated fields, and "renaming" fields from a data source. Data Source view describes this abstraction in XML and does not cause any modification to a data source. An attribute that specifies what type of information can be stored in a column, parameter, or variable. There are two different data types: system-supplied and user-defined. A database designed for reporting and data analysis. A data warehouse typically contains data representing the business history of an organization. A collection of information, tables, and other objects organized and presented to serve a specific purpose, such as searching, sorting, and recombining data. Databases are stored in files. The systems designed to support the complex analytic analysis required to discover business trends for managerial decision making. A value (data value, option setting, collation, or name) assigned, or an action taken automatically by the system if a user does not specify the value or the action. The database the user is connected to immediately after logging in to SQL Server. The copy of SQL Server that uses the computer name on which it is installed as its name. A query (SQL statement) that removes rows from one or more tables. A component in Reporting Services that is used to distribute a report to specific devices or target locations, for example email delivery, shared folder delivery, or printer delivery. A structural attribute of a cube upon which the user wants to base an analysis, for example, geography dimension. Dimension describes data in a fact table. One of the hierarchies of a dimension. A table that contains the data from which dimensions are created. An action or a technique used to retrieve the detailed data by, for example, clicking a report item that contains summarized data. The word "enterprise" is used in several different connotations throughout this book. When enterprise describes a business, it implies (according to Encarta dictionary) "organized business activities aimed specifically at growth and profit." According to the definition, an enterprise could be a company with a few employees or thousands of employees. However, typically, people think of an enterprise as a company that has a hierarchical management structure; division of responsibilities, such as operations, financial, sales, marketing, and so on; and more than a handful of employees . An edition of a product that provides more powerful features than a product labeled as "standard." In addition to providing extended features, "enterprise" products are also designed to handle large user loads, scale up (use more memory and a large number of CPUs), scale out (have the capability of adding more servers to the installation), and have provisions for high availability. In SSRS, a combination of variables , constants, functions, and operators that evaluate to a single data value. Simple expressions can be a constant, variable, column, or scalar function. Complex expressions are one or more simple expressions connected by operators. A row in a fact table in a data warehouse. A fact contains values that define a data event such as a sales transaction. A central table in a data warehouse schema that contains numerical measures and keys relating facts to dimension tables. Fact tables contain data that describes specific events within a business, such as bank transactions or product sales. An area in a data set that stores a single data value. The column or combination of columns whose values match the primary key (PK) or unique key in the same or another table. A piece of code that operates as a single logical unit. A function is called by name, accepts optional input parameters, and returns a status and optional output parameters. Many programming languages support functions, including C, Visual Basic, and Transact-SQL. Transact -SQL supplies built-in functions, which cannot be modified, and supports user-defined functions, which can be created and modified by users. A system of marking up a document so that it can be published on the World Wide Web. HTML provides formatting tags and can be viewed using a web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer). In a relational database, a database object that provides fast access to data in the rows of a table, based on key values. The primary key of a table is automatically indexed. An operation that retrieves rows from multiple source tables where values from columns shared between the sources tables match to each other. A query that copies specific columns and rows from one table to another or to the same table. A copy of SQL Server or SSRS running on a computer. A computer can run multiple instances of SQL Server 2005. A defined set of properties, methods , and collections that form a logical grouping of behaviors and data. Classes are defined by the interfaces that they implement. An interface can be implemented by many different classes. A specified series of operations, called steps, performed sequentially by SQL Server Agent. A process or a result of combining the contents of two or more tables and producing a resultset that incorporates rows and columns from each table. A column or group of columns that uniquely identifies a row (PRIMARY KEY), defines the relationship between two tables (FOREIGN KEY), or is used to build an index. A column referenced by a primary, foreign, or index key. A definition of an OLE DB data source used by SQL Server distributed queries. The data exposed by a linked server is then referenced as tables, called linked tables. An instance of SQL Server running on the same computer as the application. A user-defined variable that is used within the statement batch or procedure in which it was declared. A set of Windows operating system behaviors related to language, such as the code page, the order in which characters are sorted, the format used for dates and time, and the character used to separate decimals in numbers . SQL Server collations are similar to locales in that the collations define language-specific types of behaviors for instances of SQL Server. A set of usually numeric values from a fact table that is aggregated in a cube across all dimensions. An email API. The information describing the properties, such as the type of data in a column (numeric, text, and so on), the length of a column, the structure of database objects, such as tables, measures, dimensions, and cubes, and so on. A syntax used for defining multidimensional objects and querying and manipulating multidimensional data. Multiple copies of SQL Server or SSRS running on the same computer. An entry that has no explicitly assigned value. NULL is not the same as zero or blank. Any expression that evaluates to a number. In databases, one of the components of a database: a table, index, trigger, view, key, constraint, default, rule, user-defined data type, or stored procedure. In object-oriented programming, an instance of a class. A variable that contains a reference to an object. A COM-based API for accessing data. OLE DB supports accessing data stored in any format (databases, spreadsheets, text files, and so on) for which an OLE DB provider is available. Any software that calls and uses the OLE DB API. Formerly, the separate specification that addressed OLAP extensions to OLE DB. Beginning with OLE DB 2.0, OLAP extensions are incorporated into the OLE DB specification. A software component that exposes OLE DB interfaces. Each OLE DB provider exposes data from a particular type of data source, such as SQL Server databases, Microsoft Access databases, or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. A technology that uses multidimensional structures that aggregate data to provide rapid access to data for analysis. The source data for OLAP is commonly stored in data warehouses. A data-processing system designed to record all of the business transactions of an organization as they occur. An OLTP system is characterized by many concurrent users actively adding and modifying data. Typically, OLTP systems perform large numbers of relatively small transactions. A data access application programming interface (API) that supports access to any data source for which an ODBC driver is available. A join that includes all the rows from the joined tables that have met the search conditions, even rows from one table for which there is no matching row in the other join table. The act of using parameters or parameter markers instead of constant values. A published Reporting Services report that accepts input values through parameters. A locator information to access a file, such as c:\myfile.txt . The act of rotating rows to columns, and columns to rows. A visual control that displays rows and columns in a crosstabular structure. Pivot tables are mostly used to display multidimensional data (cubes). A column or set of columns that uniquely identifies all the rows in a table. A named attribute of a control, field, or database object that defines one of the object's characteristics (such as size or color ) or an aspect of its behavior (such as visible or hidden). A tabbed dialog box that allows specifying values for properties. A collection of information organized in tables. A system that organizes data into related rows and columns. SQL Server is an RDBMS. A link between tables that references the primary key in one table to a foreign key in another table. A fully processed report that contains both data and layout information, in a format suitable for viewing. A component in Reporting Services that is used to process the output format of a report. Rendering extensions included in Reporting Services are HTML, TIFF, XML, Excel, PDF, CSV, and Web archive. An .rdl file that contains information about the query and layout for a Reporting Services report. A metadata description of business data used for creating ad hoc reports in Report Builder. A component in Reporting Services that is used to extend the report-processing logic beyond SSRS' "out-of-the-box" capabilities to process List , Table , Matrix , Chart , Textbox , Line , Rectangle , and Image . Developers can build or purchase a third-party report-processing extension to support custom data-bound controls embedded in reports. A user who is assigned to the Content Manager role, the System Administrator role, or both for a Report Server . A report that contains data captured at a specific point in time. A report snapshot is stored in an intermediate format containing retrieved data instead of a query and rendering definitions. The set of rows returned from a SELECT statement. The format of the rows in the resultset is defined by the column-list of the SELECT statement. A horizontal line in the table that contains all attributes of a single object modeled in the table. A collection of Transact-SQL statements used to perform an operation. Transact-SQL scripts are stored as files, usually with the .sql extension. A protocol that supplies secure data communication through data encryption and decryption. A component in Reporting Services that authenticates a user or group to a Report Server. The default security extension in Reporting Services is Windows authentication. Custom extensions can be created to support forms-based authentication or to integrate with third-party single sign-on technologies. A unique value that identifies a user who is logged in to the security system. SIDs can identify either one user or a group of users. The Transact-SQL or DMX statement used to return tabular data or the MDX statement that returns multidimensional data. A query that returns rows into a resultset from one or more tables. A name that uniquely identifies a server computer on a network. SQL Server applications can connect to a default instance of SQL Server by specifying only the server name. SQL Server applications must specify both the server name and instance name when connecting to a named instance on a server. A dimension created within a database that can be used by any cube in the database. The set of rules in a collation that defines how characters are evaluated in comparison operations and the sequence in which they are sorted. A set of SQL Server collations whose characteristics match those of commonly used code page and sort order combinations from earlier versions of SQL Server. SQL collations are compatibility features that let sites choose collations that match the behavior of their earlier systems. Any combination of operators, constants, literal values, functions, and names of tables and fields that evaluates to a single value. For example, use expressions to define calculated fields in queries. A SQL statement, such as SELECT , INSERT , UPDATE , DELETE , or CREATE TABLE . One of two mechanisms for validating attempts to connect to instances of SQL Server. Users must specify a SQL Server logon ID and password when they connect. The SQL Server instance ensures the logon ID and password combination are valid before allowing the connection to succeed. A SQL or Transact-SQL command, such as SELECT or DELETE , that performs some action with data. A precompiled collection of Transact-SQL statements stored under a name and processed as a unit. Contiguous character-based ( letters , numbers, special characters) or binary (string of bytes) data value. The functions that perform operations on character or binary strings. Built-in string functions return values commonly needed for operations on character data. The language understood by RDBMSs and used to create and manage database objects and perform data manipulations (insert, update, delete, and select queries). SQL Server 2005 uses a version of the SQL language called Transact-SQL. A request for a copy of a report to be delivered to a subscriber. The subscription defines what reports will be received, where, and when. A two-dimensional object, consisting of rows and columns, used to store data in a relational database. Each table stores information about one of the types of objects modeled by the database, such as information about sales orders. A dimension that breaks time down into levels such as Year, Quarter, Month, and Day. In Analysis Services, a special type of dimension created from a date/time column. A SQL Server application with a graphical user interface used to perform common tasks . The language understood by SQL Server and used to create and manage database objects and perform data manipulations (insert, update, delete, and select queries). A group of database operations combined into a logical unit of work that is either wholly committed or rolled back. A transaction is atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable. The data processing used to efficiently record business transactions, which are of interest to an organization (for example, sales, orders for supplies, or money transfers). A stored procedure that executes in response to a data manipulation language (DML) or data definition language (DDL) event. A table referenced by a view, cursor, or stored procedure. The act of modifying one or more data values in an existing row or rows, typically by using the UPDATE statement. Sometimes, the term update refers to any data modification, including insert, update, and delete operations. An application that can be executed from a command prompt to perform common tasks. A read/write container for variable values. The part of a SQL statement that specifies which records to retrieve. The characters, including underscore (_), percent (%), and brackets ([ ]), used with the LIKE keyword for pattern matching. An interface that provides information about objects in a managed environment, with extensions for SQL called WMI Query Language (WQL). A subset of ANSI SQL with semantic changes adapted to Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). |
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 254