Getting Started with Azure Cosmos DB and MongoDB API November 7, 2018 by Prashanth Jayaram In the previous article on Azure Cosmos DB, we reviewed NoSQL concepts and how to integrate with the Microsoft Azure platform-as-a-service model using the API. After working as a database engineer for over a decade, I feel that this technology is the future for many organizations for various reasons. I had that in mind as I wrote this article which will provide basic information and help you to get started with MongoDB API integration. The MongoDB API works with BSON documents. BSON is MongoDB’s binary-encoded-version of JSON, and it extends the JSON model with additional language feature support. It’s a great effort from Microsoft to build the enterprise solutions which provide flexibility in manage distributed data along with scalable option. Read more »
SQL Server 2019 Enhanced PolyBase – Part 4 November 6, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta This article is part 4 of the series for SQL Server 2019 Enhanced PolyBase. Let quickly recap the previous articles. Read more »
Graph database implementation with Azure Cosmos DB using the API November 5, 2018 by Prashanth Jayaram In my previous article, I’ve discussed a lot about the Graph database implementation with SQL Server 2017. In this case, we’ll see a walk-through of Graph API integration with Azure Cosmos DB. Before we jump into the concepts though, let’s take a high-level overview of NoSQL databases. A NoSQL database is designed in such a way that no extra efforts are needed for the database to be distributed because NoSQL Database designed that way. Read more »
Text Analytics with Microsoft Flow September 19, 2018 by Esat Erkec Twitter is a very popular social media platform which generates millions of tweets a day. These tweets include very valuable data for marketers or social media analyzers because they can analyze these tweets with specific algorithms and find out the sense of social media users. Read more »
How to integrate Power BI data alerts into Slack August 31, 2018 by Esat Erkec There is a growing trend among professionals and entire companies to move away from email as a primary means of communication and are even adopting alternative technologies. One of the most popular of these is Slack. Slack is a new kind of messaging and communication platform between colleagues, team or community members that allows them to integrate a lot of services including Visual Studio Team Service, Jira and GitHub. Read more »
Dynamic Partitioning in Azure Analysis Services (tabular) August 6, 2018 by Istvan Martinka Objective The real-life requirement Disclaimer: I assume dear Reader, that you are more than familiar with the general concept of partitioning and star schema modeling. The intended audience is people who used to be called BI developers in the past (with a good amount of experience), but they have all sorts of different titles nowadays that I can’t keep up with… I won’t provide a full Visual Studio solution that you can download and just run without any changes or configuration, but I will give you code can be used after parameterizing according to your own environment. Read more »
How to Sync Azure SQL databases and on-premises databases with SQL Data Sync June 4, 2018 by Marko Zivkovic SQL Data Sync allows you to synchronize data across multiple Azure SQL databases and on-premises SQL Server databases. In this article, how to synchronize Azure SQL database with on-premises SQL Server database will be shown. Read more »
What is SQL Data Sync June 1, 2018 by Marko Zivkovic SQL Data Sync is a service that allows synchronizing data across multiple Azure SQL databases and on-premises SQL Server databases. In this article, a base concept of how the SQL Data Sync service works will be explained as well as what the requirements and limitations are when want to create data synchronization by using SQL Data Sync Read more »
Connecting to Azure SQL Database May 23, 2018 by Istvan Martinka The below screenshots and code samples are valid at the time of writing (May 2018) but as things in Azure can change so quickly, please check the latest documentation if a code sample doesn’t work as expected! Read more »
List of top Azure SQL Database tools May 1, 2018 by SQLShack This list provides an overview of tools that work with SQL Azure Database. If you noticed a tool we missed, please let us know in the comments below. Read more »
How to simulate the Azure SQL Database storage account behavior using the emulator April 30, 2018 by Daniel Calbimonte Introduction When you practice and play with the Azure Storage, you spent money because you need to pay for the service. This obviously provides an incentive to discover a way to emulate the Azure Storage behavior. In this article, we will use an emulator and learn how it works. Read more »
Integrating Azure SQL database alerts into Slack April 27, 2018 by Esat Erkec Database administrators have a lot of tasks and responsibilities but perhaps the most challenging task is performance tuning. Because performance tuning issues can cause huge problems in the business area, database administrators have to monitor performance metrics and have to get immediate, if not sooner, notifications when the performance values cross an optimal state. Generally, this notification comes by e-mail. Read more »
How to connect and perform a SQL Server database restore from Azure BLOB storage April 18, 2018 by Istvan Martinka Having things in the cloud should make life simpler but I have experienced it’s not that straightforward. Once all access / configuration is sorted out then yes, of course! But in the meantime it can be tedious (even frustrating) and the end result is something that could have been achieved with a different method. I think a significant chunk of what Azure offers is easier to do with the more conventional methods but that separates us from the advanced Azure features that a company would like to utilize in the shorter / longer term future. So there are reasons to spend some time / effort in getting things right up there. In my case the task I needed to accomplish sounded simple enough: get a SQL Server database backup (.bak file) from Azure blob storage copy it to our own environment and restore it to a SQL Server instance on an Azure Windows VM or skip the copy step and restore straight from blob storage Read more »
How to develop a K-Means model on Azure Machine Learning Studio January 30, 2018 by Esat Erkec In this article, we will discuss the k-means algorithm and how can we develop a k-means model on Azure Machine Learning Studio. Machine learning is an area of artificial intelligence that helps us develop relationships between data and predict the future. There are many secrets that are hidden in the data. To discover these secrets, we need Machine Learning algorithms. Machine learning plays the key role in leveraging existing data to exploit business opportunities. Read more »
How to integrate SQL Server and Azure Machine Learning January 11, 2018 by Esat Erkec Good, clean and reliable data is important for every company, because well-analyzed data will open new possibilities to success. When we look at successful companies, we see that they’ve analyzed customers, sales, and finance data very well. At this point, a game changer enters: machine learning. Machine learning Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence which analyzes data in order to predict future and discover hidden patterns. The output helps us make decisions. Machine learning is widely used in finance, healthcare and marketing. Read more »
How to use BULK INSERT to import data locally and in Azure November 16, 2017 by Daniel Calbimonte Introduction BULK INSERT is a popular method to import data from a local file to SQL Server. This feature is supported by the moment in SQL Server on-premises. However, there is a new feature that is supported only in SQL Server 2017 on-premises. This feature allows importing data from a file stored in an Azure storage account to SQL Server on-premises using BULK INSERT. This feature will be supported in Azure SQL versions in the future. In this article, we will show two examples. The first example will show how to use the traditional BULK INSERT statement from a local CSV file to Azure and the second example will show how to import data from a CSV file stored in Azure to SQL Server on-premises. Read more »
Introduction and FAQs about Microsoft Azure technologies October 13, 2017 by Daniel Calbimonte Most of the DBAs, Data Scientists, BI and Database developers are working on SQL Server on-premises. Is it time to migrate to the Cloud? In this new article, we will talk about numbers, statistics, Azure technologies like Virtual Machines with SQL Server, Azure SQL, Azure Data Factory, Azure Machine learning and other technologies. Read more »
How to create a linked server to an Azure SQL database September 27, 2017 by Marko Zivkovic Linked servers allow to access data from another SQL Server or another data source (e.g. Excel) by using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Transact-SQL. This article will explain how to create and configure a linked server to retrieve data from an Azure SQL database. Also, we will explain how to solve some common problems/issues during the process of creating a linked server to an Azure SQL database. Read more »
How to connect to the Azure Storage Account with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) September 25, 2017 by Daniel Calbimonte Introduction In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), it is possible to connect to the Azure Storage. The Azure Storage Account is useful because it creates replicas automatically in the cloud. You only need to upload your file to the Azure Storage Account and the replication is automatic. You can have multiple replications in different regions and Datacenters with few clicks. Read more »
How to connect to (and query) Power BI and Azure using PowerShell September 13, 2017 by Craig Porteous Power BI “as a whole” is a bit of a black box. If you’re like me and used to using SQL Server & its components; SSRS, SSAS etc. you have access to installation directories, Event logs, trace logs, error logs, chocolate logs? You can see full instances & their contents in one go, whether that be databases, reports or cubes. It gives you the control over & responsibility for performance & maintenance. Read more »
