Blog Post: Online Training event: Designing a Mobile Dashboard Solution with...
I’d like to make you aware of a three-hour training event that I will be presenting, hosted by SQL Server Pro Magazine on Thursday, July 30th beginning at 11 AM Eastern Time. Each one-hour session has...
View ArticleBlog Post: Microsoft's Power BI visualization service arrives July 24
Microsoft's Power BI data visualization and business intelligence service will be generally available in two weeks, marking a major milestone for the new product. The launch will bring a smorgasbord of...
View ArticleBlog Post: Power BI General Availability Announced: July 24, 2015
On Friday, James Phillips, Microsoft VP of Business Intelligence, announced that the general availability of the new Power BI Business Analytics Service will be on July 24th. Also referred to as...
View ArticleBlog Post: What Your Database Security Design….
…looks like to me. Sure, you’ve got your own home-grown database security system all designed and working in development. And then you ask me to confirm that it’s “safe”. I’ll tell ya “it’s safe as...
View ArticleBlog Post: HOW TO: Recreate SQL Server Statistics In a Different Environment
Did you know table and index statistics are the most important piece of metadata for your database? The reason for this has to do with how SQL Server (and other database engines) build query execution...
View ArticleBlog Post: HASSUG BI Developer Presentation on 7/14/2015
I presented on how to become a BI developer at the Houston Area SQL Server User Group (HASSUG). This session resulted from feedback we received in the user group on differences between database...
View ArticleBlog Post: SQL Server Polybase (2016)
What is SQL Server Polybase? Coming in SQL Server 2016 is the ability to query relational tables as well as data stored in Hadoop or Azure Blob storage. This technology will allow you to continue to...
View ArticleBlog Post: If You Thought Database Restores Were Slow, Try Restoring From an...
Recently I did something which I haven’t had to do for a VERY long time, restore a database off of an EMC Data Domain. Thankfully I wasn’t restoring a failed production system, I was restoring to a...
View ArticleBlog Post: Keep your environments in-sync and your upgrade scripts fresh
Whether we use a tool to generate upgrade scripts or we write manual test scripts for database changes there are a few things that we should bear in mind to ensure we do not break existing databases....
View ArticleBlog Post: SQL Server – New Database Backup Encryption with SQL Server 2014
With the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2014, we have the first version of SQL Server that supports encrypting database backups directly from the database engine without any third party software being...
View ArticleBlog Post: Updating All Jobs To Check For AG Primary Replica
One of the really annoying things about moving existing SQL Server databases into an Availability Group is setting up the jobs to work within the confines of the AlwaysOn Availability Group. This is...
View ArticleBlog Post: SQL Server Audit: Getting Started
SQL Server has the ability to monitor both server and database level events via the SQL Server Audit feature. Audited events can be written to the server application or security logs, or to a file...
View ArticleBlog Post: Precon this week! The Enterprise Scripting Workshop #SQLSaturdayBR
You are cordially invited to a fantastic precon event before SQL Saturday Baton Rouge! The Enterprise Scripting Workshop is on Friday, July 31, and if you register before June 30 you’ll get the Early...
View ArticleBlog Post: Beginning T-SQL slide deck and recording – #SQLSatBR
I had a great time in my Beginning T-SQL presentation here at SQL Saturday Baton rouge! Here is the BeginningTSQL slide deck (PDF). Here is an older recording of the class, as I haven’t yet had time to...
View ArticleForum Post: How to debug in Toad for SQL?
Hello I am usin Toad for SQL 6.1 I never used before but wonder if I could run 'Select' statement in debugger. E.g. I have some complex join statements do want to know 'Result set' not at the end of...
View ArticleBlog Post: Machine Learning Data Sets
Machine Learning Data Sets When starting out with data mining and machine learning you will need to have access to sample data in order to learn the technology. Often times leveraging data outside of...
View ArticleComment on Removing Comments from SQL
Recently, Toad started adding "Prompt Privs on TABLE..." when I run grants in addition to the grant statement itself causing two lines of script for every one grant in the "script" RH tab in the schema...
View ArticleBlog Post: Lost Data
DBAs get paid for performance but we keep our jobs with recovery. Being able to recover data is the most important job function you have as a DBA. If you can’t recover your data because database...
View ArticleBlog Post: Query Store – SQL Server 2016
Query Store in SQL Server 2016 is a kind of a Flight data recorder for SQL Server. Its a good feature to debug performance issues with Query plans. It helps to Record, Analyze, Identify and Force good...
View ArticleBlog Post: Stretch DB – SQL Server 2016
Stretch DB feature in SQL Server 2016 helps to move a part of a SQL Server table to the azure for Archival. It would help in situations where there is a need to archive non transactional Rows from a...
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