22-25 April 2026 
SQLBits 2018
DevOps, CI and the Data Warehouse
DevOps and continuous integration provide huge benefits to data warehouse development. John will be showing how you can use VSTS and Octopus Deploy to build, test and deploy your data warehouse
DevOps and continuous integration provide huge benefits to data warehouse development. However, most BI professionals have little exposure to the tools and techniques involved. John will be showing how you can use VSTS - Visual Studio Team Services (formally known as TFS) to build and test your data warehouse code and how to use Octopus Deploy to deploy everything to UAT and production. In particular the session will cover:
• Setting up Visual Studio Team Services to act as your build server
• How to use Octopus Deploy to deploy your entire data warehouse
• Developing a build-centric PowerShell script with psake
• Building and deploying SQL Server Data Tools projects with DAC Publish profiles
• Writing and running automated unit tests
• The many problems of automating tabular model deployments
• Setting up Visual Studio Team Services to act as your build server
• How to use Octopus Deploy to deploy your entire data warehouse
• Developing a build-centric PowerShell script with psake
• Building and deploying SQL Server Data Tools projects with DAC Publish profiles
• Writing and running automated unit tests
• The many problems of automating tabular model deployments
Speakers
Dr John Tunnicliffe's previous sessions
DevOps, CI and the Data Warehouse
DevOps and continuous integration provide huge benefits to data warehouse development. John will be showing how you can use VSTS and Octopus Deploy to build, test and deploy your data warehouse
Designing a database to best support multidimensional OLAP
Data warehouse designers often ignore the specific needs of an OLAP database. In this session, John will outline the best ways to optimise your relational database to support your multidimensional OLAP cubes
Incremental processing of SSAS Multidimensional databases
Processing of SSAS OLAP databases can be a tricky business, particularly when it comes to incremental processing of dimensions. John will give you real life examples of why certain approaches work and others do not.
Building an infrastructure to support real-time OLAP
Users love flexible analytics but hate to wait for the data to be loaded into a traditional data warehouse. John will describe how to build an infrastructure to support real-time loading of your OLAP cubes so your user's get exactly what they want
Building a dynamic OLAP environment
This session will present the tools and techniques used to create OLAP cubes and supporting data marts on-the-fly from a mere set of data files and configuration metadata.