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Data Science, BI, and Reports

Data science, along with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) fields, is often seen as the new direction in which we ought to move our analysis of all the bits and bytes that we collect and store in our databases. There is so much hype now about those technologies, and managers are buying in.

I'm not sure I agree. I do think that AI and ML will increasingly be used, but they're just a part of what you use to analyze data. Buck Woody has a good post about the way in which we might examine our technology stacks used for BI work.

We have a lot of reporting technologies to enable us to make better decisions, and there is a space for all of them. Many people like Excel, some use tools like Power BI and Tableau, still others prefer to get insight boiled down to a single number that influences them to move one way or the other.

There is a lot being written about AI and ML technologies and certainly many organizations experimenting with them. Data Ccience covers these areas and more, asking our data not just what it says, but potentially what this might mean in the future.

However, this doesn't replace traditional BI and reporting. As Buck notes, these are tools and you should use the ones that work for your organization. Learn about them, experiment, understand the impact they have on your audience, and choose the best tools for the job.

I'm sure this area will continue to evolve, and we'll get new tools and techniques to help organizations make better decisions. Whether this will actually improve forecasting is likely up to the skills of both the technical and business people.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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

Redgate SQL Source Control
 
 Featured Contents

How to Decipher @@Options

jonfrisbee from SQLServerCentral

This article will show how you can read the @@OPTIONS variable and determine your settings.

Unwrapping, Unboxing and Installing SQL Clone

Additional Articles from Redgate

If you are evaluating a tool such as a text editor or spreadsheet, it is easy: you just install it, you run it, you decide whether you need it. Job done. However, a similar 'unboxing' or 'unwrapping' of SQL Clone, and installing across a network, is not so quick and easy. Phil Factor's solution is to install and run a complete installation of SQL Clone on a single box. This allows you to try everything out, creating images and deploying clones, while isolated from the network. It can then be extended across a network, subsequently, when it's been fully tested.

Power BI Workbooks

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

Power BI Workbooks | Step by Step - In this tip we look at how to work with Power BI workbooks and in the previous tip we looked at working with Power BI datasets.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Focusing on Business Value

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

This was a fun talk with David Atkinson at Redgate. We talk satellites, finance, and more. Including some early history of the company. We are talking about how to...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Building an Azure Sandbox

Bradley Schacht from Bradley Schacht

It’s that time of the year again. No, not fall, although I do love the weather change that’s around the corner. It’s time for me to rebuild my Azure...

 

 Question of the Day

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

 

Job Notifications

I have a job in my SQL Server 2017 instance that runs under the SQL Agent. What are my options for notifying an admin after the job?

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)

Limiting the Data Frame

I've got this data frame in R:

> travel
  Passenger FlightDate Destination Miles Dollars
1     Steve   20180225         LHR 11789    1100
2     Steve   20180512         LHR 10989    1500
3     Steve   20180620         LHR 11789    1800
4     Steve   20180830         LHR 11789    1100
5     Steve   20181015         LHR  9678    2700
6     Steve   20181212         LHR 10520    1500
7     Steve   20180810         MSY  2427     440
8     Steve   20180225         OSL  1502     210
9     Steve   20180225         DCA  1475     310

I want to extract out the flights to London (LHR) that were more than 10,000 miles. I try this:

> london.flights = subset(travel, Destination = "LHR" & Miles > 10000)

However, this doesn't work. I still see all my flights. What should I run?

Answer: > london.flights = subset(travel, Destination == "LHR" & Miles > 10000)

Explanation: The problem is that I need an ==, not an = in the filter clause. Ref: logical operators in R - https://www.r-bloggers.com/logical-operators-in-r/

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 - Administration
User without a matching login can gain access - Hi, I came across something that changed the way I see SQL Server permissions. Way back, we created a LOGIN in SQL Server for an AD group.  At the time, we gave the new LOGIN db_datareader permission to a database. As expected, all of the people in the AD group could SELECT from that database. […]
differential is as same as full - I have a development server. We have backup setup on the server. I noticed the differential backup 5.0 GB is almost the same size as the full backup. 5.1GB I know there is little update on the database. Why the differential backup is so big? We do full backup at weekend, and nightly differential.
Upgrade SQL 2014 to 2017 - Hello crowd, I found a couple of threads with upgrade discussions, but not what I was searching for. I'm planning to upgrade my SQL2014 Always On HA Cluster from W2k12 R2, SQL2014 to Win2k16, SQL2017. In my Test Environment I added the 2 new Win2k16 nodes with SQL2017 to the Cluster, then joined one of […]
SQL Server 2017 - Development
Migracion de 2008 a 2016 - Cordial Saludo. Voy a migrar una base de datos de 2008 r2 express un estándar de 2016. ¿Puedo obtener una lista comparativa de los comandos TSQL que cambian entre los motores mencionados? Gracias por su ayuda.
Round at specific decimal point - Hi, I am trying to round my numbers up to the nearest whole number if the decimal is equal to or greater than .7, for example 28.7 will be 29, or round down if it is below .7, for example, 28.6 will be 28.  I'm not sure If I need to truncate first and make […]
SQL Server 2016 - Administration
JOb failed due to collation conflict - We migrated the databases and jobs from sql 2005  to SQL 2016  and the collation of sql 2016  is "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS"  and sql 2005 is "Latin1_General_CI_AS"  and all the databases in sql 2016 is having the same collation SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS", When we tried to run a job which is configured on master to check the database connections […]
SET OPTIONS question - Hi All, I am trying to get the SET OPTIONS using plan handle. I am using below dmv , but I get below output. select * from sys.dm_exec_plan_attributes.(0x05000A00F2B6F25BA0FC923A2001000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000) How to get what values have been set ? I mean using value = 4347 how can get output something like below.. ANSI_WARNINGS :ON ANSI_PADDING :ON ANSI_NULLS […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
How to use replace function - I have an ID column data that is having space at the last, and i am comparing this column data with other table column data as its nto matched getting NULLS ID - 65447093 if i copy and paste in notepad, the above id has space at the last and hence it accepting 9 charactrers; […]
duplicate problem after a join - Good morning al I encounter a duplicate problem in the result of my query I have a doubt that the result of the duplicate comes after my join Who can help me correct my request to remove the duplicate I try with distinct but it does not work ;with echantillon as ( select Ref_Contrat = […]
COUNT DATE - I need some help counting a date field. I tried the examples below and no luck COUNT(CAST(CONVERT(CHAR(11),  MyDateField , 113) COUNT(CONVERT(DATETIME, MyDateField, 101)) DATA: 2017-01-01 01:03:06.001 2017-01-01 01:04:05.002 2017-01-02 01:03:05.003 2017-01-02 01:04:04.006
Administration - SQL Server 2014
SQL Cluster Instance Inaccessible - For some reason, I have experienced an issue whereby the SQL Clustered instance starts but none of the accounts / Domain or otherwise can open up the instance in SSMS.  Even the SA account fails to work. I am after some suggestions?   The logs just show issues whereby application connections fail to open explicitly […]
Audit - What is the best way to audit all account activities  in sql server. ex: select or insert or alter index  etc executed by any user and the duration that activity ran.
SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL
Temp Tbl - Hi, I am new to using temp table and aware that they are created in Tempdb. However let us say if I use 'USE DB Test' code will it create in the test DB or still in Tempdb? I also wonder how they are beneficial. Example, SQL Server still has to create temp table ...does […]
SQL Server 2008 - General
I want Three tables to be joined and columns to be computed based on their value - I have 3 tables TABLE A (This Holds opening Balance of every individual student) =========================================== | Studid | FeeHeadId | Amount | AS_ON | =========================================== | 1 | 1 | 33 |2015-2016| | 1 | 2 | 11 |2015-2016| | 1 | 3 | 0 |2015-2016| | 1 | 4 | 0 |2015-2016| =========================================== N:B:- […]
SSDT
Incorrect date from control table - Hi all   Hoping someone can spot something obvious on this one.....   We use a control table as we do incremental loads.  The control table stores the date/time when a document was last loaded successfully (it takes the date of the latest record to be loaded into the relevant table). Now, we've got an […]
 

 

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