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Daily Coping Tip

What values are important to you? Find ways to use them today

I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.

For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours.

Do you have or make professional goals?

Today we have a guest editorial as Steve is traveling. This editorial was originally published on Jan 15, 2018.

Well, we made it to 2018. It seems like 2017 went by quite quickly. The start of the year can be a good time to think about where you are going professionally. If you are a goal setting person, you are probably assessing the goals you made last year. Keeping some of the ones you didn’t quite accomplish and adding new ones you hope to achieve this year. Others of you may not make professional goals. Perhaps this is the year to start.

First, I think I should mention I am not talking about New Year’s resolutions. Those often seem certain to fail. I am not saying your goals shouldn’t be or couldn’t be lofty. It just seems like resolutions are anything but resolute. I believe a professional goal can be more of a point of reference. It can be a direction you are moving toward. Still, some goals can also be more general and hard to quantify.

When setting a professional goal, it is important to be specific. You could set a general goal like: I want to be a better DBA, but how would you know if you accomplished it? It would be better to focus on something specific that would help you be a better DBA. Like, I want to understand indexes on a deeper level and how to tune them.

So why are professional goals important? I think when we are NOT trying to move toward something, when we are just staying with status quo, we can fall victim to complacency. This could cost us our jobs. Also, when we have a goal, we can measure our success in achieving that goal. It always feels good when you accomplish something. When trying to accomplishing a goal we often have to learn and master new things. This can be valuable in one’s career. You never know, your goals of today might become your career of tomorrow.

I would encourage you to write your goals down. Perhaps, display them someplace where you work. Share them with co-workers, or if you are really brave share them with your manager. Accountability is often a strong motivation to accomplish things.

It doesn’t hurt to get some help with your goals. You don’t have to go it alone. Others have reached for similar goals before you. Try to follow in their footsteps and learn from their mistakes. Perhaps a mentor would be helpful to you in reaching your goal. Someone that has already achieved it, or has knowledge that would help you attain your goal.

I would encourage you if you don’t make professional goals, to spend some time in the near future to think about it and write some down. Share some past or future goals you have and how you plan on getting there.

bkubicek

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 Featured Contents
SQLServerCentral Article

Power BI Report Builder Introduction

Daniel Calbimonte from SQLServerCentral

Learn how to get started with the Power BI Report Builder.

External Article

The nuances of MySQL indexes

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

Indexes are critical for database performance. In this article, Lukas Vieikis explains the many types of indexes available with MySQL.

Technical Article

Webinar: Introducing Database DevOps

Additional Articles from SQLServerCentral

Join Microsoft Data Platform MVP, and AWS Community Builder Grant Fritchey to discover what we mean by Database DevOps, why you need to include the database in your DevOps initiative and the benefits its offer you, your teams, and your organization.

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Comparing Daily Estimates to Actuals–#SQLNewBlogger

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers. In a previous post I wrote about using...

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - How to Deploy an Azure Function with PowerShell using Azure Devops

Koen Verbeeck from Koen Verbeeck

In the blog post Azure Function with PowerShell and the Power BI REST API I explained how you could create an Azure Function using the PowerShell scripting language. This...

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Breaking Dynamic Data Masking

I have a table where there is a date of birth column (dob) with the date datatype that is protected by Dynamic Data Masking and the default mask in SQL Server 2019. If this non-privileged (without the UNMASK permission) user runs this query and there is a row with this date in it, what is returned?
SELECT dob FROM dbo.DDMTest AS dt
 WHERE dob = '1967-04-01'
GO

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

ADF Mapping Data Flow with Multiple Inputs

I am working in Azure Data Factory (ADF) and I am building a mapping data flow. I have two inputs, and which of these is NOT a valid way to work with the data in those inputs? In other words, how can I relate the data these two inputs together?

Answer: NOT EXISTS

Explanation: As you can see in the documentation, I can handle multiple inputs in the following ways:

  • join
  • conditional split
  • exists
  • union
  • lookup

Not Exists is not an option. Ref: Managing the mapping data flow graph - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/concepts-data-flow-manage-graph

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Development
JSON String invalid - Hi All, Have query regarding a nested array in JSON file, previously raised a ticket on how to retrieve the data but due to the number of JSON files involved using JSON_VALUE is leading to poor performance. Decided to try to name the array myself in the JSON string but coming across problems, below is […]
SQL Server 2016 - Administration
Login failed for user windows user and SQL user - Hi. windows authentication administrator and SQL authentication SQL user both are not able to login, please suggest How to login SQL instance? "sa" account was disabled after SQL server installed. >sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -P Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server : Login failed for user 'sa'.. >sqlcmd -S localhost […]
Administration - SQL Server 2014
Connect SQL Server using local IP - Dears ! Good Day ! I have using SQL Server. I write the server name for login as "192.168.10.2\SQLSRVR2008" but I want to use server name only as "192.168.10.2" How can I do so ? Anybody plz help me in this matter.
How is he seeing all the databases - Hi, I have a user that doesn't have access to a database but yet he can see it and query it in SSMS. He is not a member of sysadmin roles or any other roles (there are no custom roles). I disabled his windows auth account and he was then unable to log in - […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
T-SQL Pivot Question - I am familiar with T-SQL's Pivot Operator, I've used it to convert rows of financial data into columns like one would find in a 12 Month Income Statement.  What I've never tried before and am not sure if its even possible is using Pivot when the end results will have 2 (not just 1) set […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
Minimum Permissions for Conflict Viewer - Hi, I'm looking to find the minimum permissions necessary to give a user access to the Replication Conflict Viewer and allow user to view and resolve conflicts in Management Studio.
Possible conflict bug in Merge replication. - I'm running into a strange problem. Example A change is made on the publisher, when it's moved to the subscriber it generates a conflict and is rolled back. However nothing was changed on the subscriber, it seems to be an erroneous conflict and possible bug. Has anyone else seen this, or have any guidance?
SQL Server 2019 - Development
Simple Query Question Help - Hello all, I am stuck on something that should be very easy but struggling on this. I have the following records in a table: Customers CustomerId     MatchTypeId 1                          1000 1                          […]
simple sp - Hi I have 2 tables in 2 different DBs, I need to have all the rows of  the second table in second DB when a filed(column)is "100" in the first table in the first DB. Should I use Trigger, If Yes, Would you please tell me how? Thank you.
SSMS removed debugging features so I am debugging in VS. Fetch takes like 30 sec - First I can't stress how angry I am with Microsoft for removing debugging from SSMS. Second, I am using Visual Studio to debug now. When I build a cursor, the fetch command takes about 30 seconds to complete. Does anyone know why? Thanks.
Working with Oracle
backup database in SQL Server VS Oracle - I would like to know the difference of full back up between Oracle and SQL server. In SQL server, for a medium size database, If I do a full backup, then I can use to restore to another database that is exactly the same as the original database. I don't need to do online transaction […]
Amazon AWS and other cloud vendors
Taking both snapshots and AMIs for backup? - Our architect is set on taking both AMIs and snapshots at a regular interval. His reasoning is that in case the snapshots don’t work, he wants another method to fall back to. I’ve been arguing against this as AMIs are essentially snapshots at their core (minus the drive mappings and permissions) and this would greatly […]
General Cloud Computing Questions
Programming skills for learning cloud computing - What programming concepts are needed for a career in cloud computing for a cloud engineer or cloud architect role? Or does it depend?
SSRS 2014
Dividing Integers behaviour - I am trying to find documentation or an explanation as to the behaviour when dividing one integer by another . Take my code as example: declare @WeightInGrams int set @WeightInGrams = 164 select @WeightInGrams, @WeightInGrams/1000 AS [NoCast], CAST(@WeightInGrams AS decimal(18,3))/1000 AS [CastColumnOnly], @WeightInGrams / CAST(1000 AS decimal(18,3)) AS [CastValueOnly], CAST(@WeightInGrams AS decimal(18,3)) / CAST(1000 AS […]
Integration Services
SCD in SSIS - Hello, I am new to ssis and i am a little bit confused about the SCD_Start_Date and SCD_End_Date when we use the SCD dimension wizard. on many examples that i have searched online people always use the "system start time" or "system container " start time. but i am implementing a data warehouse from a […]
 

 

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