 | | The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News | | Hand-picked content to sharpen your professional edge |
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Getting Close Last week we saw the release of SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.5, with enhancements for Big data clusterrs and a Java language SDK for SQL Server. This is the 6th public release of the next version, and one that’s coming at an increasing rate. If you look at the cadence, there was a release in September, then November, then December, about once a month. A long delay at the beginning of the year, but now 3 releases in a month and a half, which lead me to think that they’re getting close to being done with features. I have no idea when the product will release, and I do think that //build/ is a little too close, but I do think that it will release in the next few months. For fun, I’ll send someone this mug (or a fun one of your choice) if you can guess which day the new version will release. Drop a note in the discussion with your guess. For SQL Server 2017, we had seven CTPs and 2 RCs. For SQL Server 2016, we had 11 CTPs and 4 RCs. SQL Server 2014, I only had 2 CTPs tracked, though I think this was barely a major release. You can flip back through our build lists and check, but there has been both an increase in the pace of CTP/RC release as well as an increasing volume through the versions. I think this is a direct result of an better engineering process that has adopted DevOps to ensure the release of software is easier than ever. I have to admit I’m torn on this. There is some effort to download and update software, and at times these versions have to be uninstalled to install a new version. That makes sense, and I certainly don’t want them spending time ensuring they can upgrade between CTPs if they can fix some bugs instead. Even if i have time to install the software and check a few things, I often don’t want to then recheck a number of things that used to work, and like many people, I probably just check one or two new things. Or if I haven’t finished checking something from a previous CTP, I might stick with that version. This is one place that I think containers can really change the world. I can get the updated software without effort. Other than the download, starting a CTP 2.5 image is no different than starting a CTP 2.4 image. There is still a challenge with data files, but in a very rapdily changing world, we want to be able to upgrade quickly. With the changes made with CUs to allow roll forward and roll back, containers make even more sense. Stop one container, start a new one, same IP, same name, same data, new version of binaries. Upgrade or downgrade. I’m both excited and intimidated by the new version. There are lots of enhancements that are going to make this a new generation of the platform, but as developers and customers request the use of new features, I’m going to be scrambling to better learn and understand some of the tricks I need to get the system to run well. Of course, with Intelligent Query Processing, maybe I’ll have a bit more free time away from some of the poor code that I’m stuck running. Steve Jones - SSC Editor Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums |
| The Weekly News | | All the headlines and interesting SQL Server information that we've collected over the past week, and sometimes even a few repeats if we think they fit. |
For me, this particular code to generate a script to recreate indexes has more practical use in a replication environment. For example, the default replication setting is to exclude the... The... |
Linked Servers offer a great way to connect two SQL Servers together, allowing remote querying and DML operations. Frequently, this is used to copy data from production to reporting.... |
A few months ago I suggested that the following settings should be the default for most SQL Server instances: Set cost threshold for parallelism to 50 Disable lightweight pooling... |
My default setup for a few years is to only use named instances, usually with a standard SQL2014 or SQL 2016 as the name of the instance. Recently, I... The... |
Yes, I realize you shouldn’t shrink your database (data files or log files), but I recently had a case where ... Continue reading The post Shrinking a large database with... |
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) |
There is a lot of excitement about artificial intelligence (AI), and also a lot of fear. Let’s set aside the potential for robots to take over the world for... |
To understand what Continuation does in Azure CosmosDB, Let's look at how SQL Server handles query results first and try to compare SQL Server to CosmosDB. If you will run the following select statement in SQL Server. You will end up with all the data Orders table has. If there are 1 million rows, SQL Server will try to deliver 1 million rows to you like a warrior. |
I do a LOT of scripting. Given the choice to click in a GUI vs. typing at the command line, I’ll choose the command line. Given the choice to... |
Key Details What: SQL Saturday RaleighWhere: Wake Tech RTP, 10908 Chapel Hill Road, Morrisville, North Carolina, 27560When: Saturday, April 27th, all dayAdmission is free. Sign up at the SQL... |
I am very excited to announce I will be delivering a pre-conference session on SQL Server Performance Tuning on November 5th at PASS Summit 2019. If you have ever... The... |
Redgate are inviting senior data professionals to attend one of the upcoming SQL in the City Summit events taking place in April, May and June. If you’re interested in learning how your business can benefit from implementing Compliant Database DevOps this event is for you. Find out who’s presenting and register for a Summit near you today |
| Database Design and Implementation |
In Part 1 we presented some foundation knowledge with which to debunk misconceptions lurking in the industry's modeling mess that Friesendal has tried to map, and to show how... |
Today I begin a week-long series where I will be discussing various SQL Server Monitoring Tools. My primary job is to help people with my consulting workshop Comprehensive Database... |
A Long Way From Home Most scripts (even ones I’ve worked on!) that look at the plan cache, have had… |
I was asked the other day why a customer was having performance issues on a table. A simple SELECT that ... Continue reading The post Yes, pulling just the data... |
Oh, Bother Sometimes, you only wanna work on one thing. Other times, you only wanna work on something if it’s… |
Date Debate Searching dates is a common enough task. There are, of course, good and bad ways to do this.… |
| Devops and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) |
In my last post I showed how to build an Azure DevOps Pipeline for a Terraform build of an Azure SQLDB. This will take the terraform code and build... The... |
| ETL/SSIS/Azure Data Factory |
As a follow-up to my blogs What product to use to transform my data? and Should I load structured data into my data lake?, I wanted to talk about where you... The... |
It is not a joke: SSIS is available for Visual Studio 2019 as a preview. Whoa, hold on. SQL Server 2019 hasn’t been released yet? But there’s already an... The... |
Problem: You are deploying a SQL Server Integration Services Package to the SSIS Catalog and keeps on failing with the following error: The error is succinct and direct to... |
Small form-factor (SFF) machines have emerged as a major growth segment in the desktop PC market. Performance per watt is an important metric for such systems. Intel has pretty... |
Introduction Earlier this week, I bought a new HP Spectre x360 13-AP0023DX convertible laptop at Best Buy. I have often criticized Best Buy as a bad place to buy... |
Intel's latest SSD caching solution using 3D XPoint memory is here. This time, the Optane cache is paired with QLC NAND flash, and all bundled onto one M.2 module... |
Microsoft is increasing the minimum storage requirement for Windows 10 feature updates but if this impacts your environment, you have more than a year to find a solution. The... |
The results reflect Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella’s efforts to draw some customers away from cloud market leader Amazon.com Inc. and ink more significant clients. Microsoft also is benefiting... |
While Microsoft's $9.6 billion in 'commercial cloud' revenues stole the headline show for its Q3 FY19, Windows also contributed significantly to Microsoft's numbers. |
If you really want to install the update now, you'll have to unplug your drives. |
| PowerPivot/PowerView/PowerQuery/PowerBI |
Amanda Cofsky joins us to show how you can use buttons, in Power BI Desktop, to take your reports to the next level. Blank buttons can really make your... |
One of the most popular blog posts I have written in recent years is this post on how the RelativePath and Query options for the Web.Contents() M function can... |
If you are using slicers in your Power BI report, moving them off to the filter pane could improve performance. Patrick shows you what this could look like based... |
Power BI real-time streaming is the perfect solution for IoT. Whether processing data through Azure Stream Analytics, the PubNub data stream network, or a custom Internet of Things solution,... |
Thanks for watching this week's Power BI news roundup! Last weeks roundup: https://guyinacu.be/roundup134 2 Minute Tuesday: https://guyinacu.be/databrickserror Patrick's tech video: https://guyinacu.be/modelview Adam's tech video: https://guyinacu.be/powerbigetdata Sources DAX 101: Summing... |
There is always a discussion on how to store back the data from Power BI to local computer or SQL Server Databases, in this short blog, I will show... |
I’ve been working more with different people in different departments more and more lately at work. |
The situation Hey all, I am Andreas Schubert and I am working as a Principal Consultant and Database Reliability Engineer for SQL Server & Azure for multiple national and... |
We’re excited to announce the monthly release of SQL Server 2019 community technology preview (CTP) 2.5. SQL Server 2019 is the first release of SQL Server to closely integrate... |
Version-agnostic management pack for SQL Server now supports SQL Server 2012, 2014, and 2016 in addition to 2017 and up This management pack is virtually a new version of the... |
This is a review of Jamie Dixon’s book Mastering .NET Machine Learning. For the sake of transparency, Jamie is a friend and if I hated his book I wouldn’t... |
So you wanna run a load test against SQL Server. One thing I need you to understand first: you have to provide the database and the queries. Almost all... |
SSIS Framework Comunity Edition is available from DILM Suite (Data Integration Lifecycle Management Suite). SSIS Framework CE is not only free, it is open source. To install SSIS Framework... |
In my posts about using Azure Devops to build Azure resources with Terraform, I built a Linux SQL VM. I used the Terrafrom in this GitHub repository and created... |
In my many years of working as a DBA, I have encountered many disabled logins. However, I have never really encountered what looks to be a disabled database user account. I didn’t even think it was possible to disable a user account in a SQL Server database. |
For years, Microsoft's baseline security policy has expired passwords after 60 days. |
Have you ever wondered how devastating a cyberattack could be for your enterprise? A recent study by Poneman determined that the average cost of& |
One part of my job is to understand the compliance landscape. This means that I read a lot about the GDPR and related similar laws. I also have to... |
IT pros slammed again and again by security breaches can become desensitized--or they can gain strength from the experiences. |
I found a very interesting SQL question on Twitter recently |
The Vineyard Wind project will also commit $15 million to battery development. |
American auto shows are in decline, but we still found a few things to excite. |
Yesterday, SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 shipped. Here’s the official announcement, the download page, and the release notes. Yes, it’s still free, and yes, they’re still adding features. Yes,... |
| Virtualization, containers, and k8s |
Anytime that you a large environment, gathering metrics in any form can be daunting and cumbersome. Using scripting languages can usually greatly improve the efficiency of this process as... |
I have received some rave reviews of my article on SQL SERVER – How to Get Started with Docker Containers with Latest SQL Server?. It was amazing to hear... |
Introducing a new user interface, enhancements and new features, you can now try the latest version of Data Masker for Oracle. Deliver production like data to development teams while ensuring that confidential data remains protected. |
This is the best analysis of the software causes of the Boeing 737 MAX disasters that I have read. Technically this is safety and not security; there was no... |
Monday May 20-Friday May 24 - Join Redgate and PASS for a week of events designed to help SQL Server teams navigate the new world of global data privacy. |
Wednesday May 8, 4PM-5PM BST / 10AM-11AM CDT - Discover how transitioning from shared database development to individual development environments is easier than ever thanks to database virtualisation and source control technology. |
Wednesday May 1, 4PM-5PM BST / 10AM-11AM CDT - In this webinar, you’ll learn how to implement a test data provisioning solution that accelerates your development cycles and meets the needs of data privacy regulations such as HIPAA, SOX and the GDPR. |
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