After visiting PASS in Seattle and seeing all fancy demos of Power View (Crescent) and Powerpivot in Sharepoint I realised that there is more to life then integration services and datawarehousing. Before PASS I had done a installation of SQL Server Denali CTP3 on my laptop to check out the new project model in SSIS, but I realised that I needed to set up an environment where me and my colleagues could test the new reporting and analysis features. I therefore decided to create a new demo environment.
Since Sharepoint 2010 requires a 64 bit OS I decided to create a VMWare Workstation with Windows Server 2008R2 standard as OS. So I setup the machine and downloaded some updates, installed the CTP3 and Sharepoint 2010 and tried to get it all working – no luck though. I should have done my homework instead and googled a bit before I started, that would probably have saved me from a reinstall of everything (including the OS).
So here’s a short summary of the order on how to perform the installation and also some useful links:
- Create the image and install the operating system (if possible, go for Windows Server 2008R2, standard is enough)
- Download updates and service packs
- Make sure the machine is either part of a domain or is a domain host. I dont want our virtual machines to be a part of the domain, so I set it up as a domain controller. Just go to server manager and activate the role ”active directory domain services”. If you are unsure on how to configure it, do a quick google (or should I say bing?), its quite straightforward.
- Once the machine was in place I followed this guide: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oneclickbi/archive/2011/07/21/getting-up-and-running-with-sql-server-denali-for-business-intelligence-crescent-and-powerpivot-in-ctp3.aspx
The steps are:
- Install Sharepoint prerequisites
- Install Sharepoint but do not configure it
- Install SQL Server Denali CTP3, choose SQL Server Powerpivot for Sharepoint
- Setup Sharepoint and Powerpivot using Powerpivot Configuration Tool
- Install SQL Server database and analysis services in tabular mode
- Install SQL Server analysis services in multidimensional mode (as a new instance)
- Configure Reporting Services inside Sharepoint Central administration
- I used this checklists to test that everything was up and running: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231687(v=sql.110).aspx