Using PowerShell automation, one could easily automate the most common tasks. The future for PowerShell as the automation framework is bright. Shipping PowerShell core on the hybrid platform has opened up new markets, new customers, and new opportunities for Microsoft. At the same time, we still strongly believe in Powershell on Windows Server, Linux and macOS as a great combination for automation.
Read more »Getting started with the AWS SAM CLI
August 17, 2020In this article, we will learn the concept of the AWS SAM CLI. This is a part of the three-article series “Develop and Deploy Serverless Applications with AWS SAM CLI”. SAM, abbreviated for Serverless Application Model is a framework provided by Amazon Web Services, which can be leveraged to build applications on the local machine and deploy those to the AWS Lambdas directly.
Read more »Getting started with Jupyter Notebooks
August 14, 2020In this article, I am going to explain what Jupyter Notebooks are and how to install the same on your machine. Further, I will demonstrate how to use these notebooks using Visual Studio Code and perform data analysis and other development activities. It is an open-source platform using which you can create and share documents that contain live code, equations, and visualizations along with the formatted text. Most importantly, these notebooks can be run on the web browser by just starting a server and using it. This open-source project is maintained by the team at Project Jupyter.
Read more »Export data from AWS Redshift to AWS S3
August 14, 2020This article provides a step by step explanation of how to export data from the AWS Redshift database to AWS S3 using different export-related options.
Read more »Configure a SQL Server Always On Availability Group on the domain-independent Failover Cluster
August 13, 2020This article continues from the series on SQL Server Always On Availability Group. This is the 11th article in this series.
Read more »Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers: SQL Workload Migration to Microsoft Azure Database Platforms
August 13, 2020In this article, we will discuss a number of questions that you may face when being interviewed to a Microsoft Azure Data Engineer position. These questions will focus on the process of migrating the SQL Server databases from the on-premises instances to the Microsoft Azure database services.
Read more »Java Language Extensions in SQL Server 2019
August 13, 2020In this article, we will discuss SQL Server 2019 new feature—Java Language Extensions. With the advent of SQL Server 2019, Microsoft always strives to expand its footprint on the capabilities of MLS (Machine Learning Services). It builds a deeper integration between the data-platform and data science under the data science umbrella. The Microsoft SQL Server 2019 MLS extensibility framework provides a solid base for allowing extensions in R, Python, and now Java.
Read more »Visual Studio Code for MySQL and MariaDB development
August 13, 2020In this article, I’ll walk you through setting up Visual Studio Code for MySQL and MariaDB development using a third-party VS Code extension and give an overview of the basic features.
Read more »Export data from MySQL tables to Azure SQL database
August 12, 2020In this article, I am going to explain how we can export the data of the on-premise MySQL database to Azure SQL database. This task can be performed in two phases.
Read more »Deploy a domain-independent Windows Failover Cluster for SQL Server Always On Availability Groups
August 12, 2020This is the 10th article in the series for SQL Server Always On Availability Groups.
Read more »SQL database hotfix testing with tSQLt
August 10, 2020This article talks about getting your database hotfixes tested with tSQLt provided they do not have any inherited complexities or dependencies on things other than SQL database.
Read more »SQL Certifications
August 7, 2020Introduction
Many people ask me how to get the Microsoft SQL Certification. SQL Server has a lot of certifications and specializations. In this article, we will provide an introduction to each of them and provide some tips related. At the time of this publication, we are under the Coronavirus era. Many people are at home with free time. Instead of watching all the bad COVID 19 news, it is a great idea to earn a new certification.
Read more »Learn MySQL: Add data in tables using the INSERT statement
August 7, 2020In my previous article, Learn MySQL: Sorting and Filtering data in a table, we had learned about the sorting and filtering of the data using WHERE and ORDER BY clause.
Read more »Backup SQL databases to Azure using the database maintenance plan
August 6, 2020In this article, we are going to learn how we can back up the SQL database to Azure using a database maintenance plan. To demonstrate the process, I have restored the AdventureWorks2017 database on my workstation. I have created an Azure container named sqlbackups in my storage account.
Read more »Power BI Visuals: Working with Treemaps and Tables
August 6, 2020In this article, you will learn how to work with Treemaps and Tables, which are two of the most commonly used Power BI visuals. You will also see how slicers can be used in Power BI to dynamically update the data in Treemaps and Tables. Power BI Visuals are extremely easy to create and don’t require you to write any code.
Read more »Getting started with Pandas in Python
August 5, 2020In this article, I am going to explain how to use Pandas in Python. Pandas is one of the most popular modules in python that can be used for data manipulation and analysis using python. Basically, it provides an easy interface to interact with flowing data and apply transformations to them on the go. This module is covered under the BSD license and can be used for free. You can download this module by visiting the website or by installing it through the python package manager.
Read more »Automatic Page Repair in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups
August 5, 2020This is the 9th article in the series of SQL Server Always On Availability Groups.
Read more »Configure ODBC drivers for MySQL
August 5, 2020In this article, I am going to explain ODBC drivers. We will go through the process to set up the ODBC driver for MySQL and use it to create an SSRS report. First, let me talk about ODBC drivers.
Read more »Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases trip to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
August 5, 2020In the previous two trips of this articles series, databases trip to SQL Server on Azure VM and to Azure SQL Database, we discussed the benefits of migrating your on-premises SQL Server databases to the Microsoft Azure database platforms and the methods that can be followed to migrate the on-premises databases to the Azure database platforms.
Read more »Compress and split SQL database backups using WinRar
August 4, 2020Recently, we have received a strange request from our customer. They want us to set up a schedule a backup job that generates a backup of SQL database, compress the backup file in multiple compressed archive files (WinRAR files.) We tried to explain to the customer that the SQL Server native backups are capable of compressing the backup file, and it can split a large and compressed backup into multiple backup files. But they insisted us to use the WinRAR software to compress and split the backup.
Read more »Implementing an SSAS Tabular Model for Data Analytics
August 4, 2020Introduction
Having discussed different aspects of MDM SSAS cubes, we will look at the Microsoft recommended OLAP tool, SSAS Tabular Models for data analytics. There are a few advantages of using Tabular Models over MDM that are listed below.
Read more »Building full-text indexes using the Sphinx search engine
August 4, 2020In the previously published article, Getting started with Sphinx search engine, we talked about the Sphinx search engine and how to install it on the Windows operating system. In this article, we will talk about building full-text indexes using Sphinx. We will be covering seven topics:
Read more »Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases Trip to Azure SQL Database
August 3, 2020In the previous article of this series, Migrate SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases trip to SQL Server on Azure VM, we went through the methods that can be used for assessing your on-premises SQL Server databases before the migration process then migrating it to a SQL Server instance hosted in a Microsoft Azure VM.
Read more »Link an Azure Cosmos DB into a SQL Server Stored Procedure
August 3, 2020Introduction
Microsoft Azure offers hundreds of cloud products, with more on the way. In the database space, Microsoft offers Azure Cosmos DB, a NoSQL database product. We can build Java, .Net, etc. applications around Cosmos DB resources. To extend this capability, this article will show how to query Cosmos DB directly from SQL Server.
Read more »Share AWS Redshift data across accounts
August 3, 2020This article provides a step by step explanation of how to share AWS Redshift database snapshots with other AWS accounts to enable porting of data from one AWS account to another.
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