This article explores SQL Server Update Statistics using the database maintenance plan.
Read more »Using the Merge Join Transformation in SSIS packages
April 10, 2020This article explores the Merge Join Transformation in SSIS packages.
Read more »Scheduling SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio
April 10, 2020SQL Notebooks are an interactive way of creating documents, executing T-SQL queries along with Python and PowerShell codes. It is available in Azure Data Studio, a cross-platform client tool that works on both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Read more »Fuzzy Lookup Transformations in SSIS
April 10, 2020This article helps you to understand the usage of the Fuzzy Lookup Transformation in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).
Read more »An overview of Chart Types in Power BI
April 9, 2020In this article, I am going to give an overview of the most widely used chart types in Power BI. Power BI, as everyone might be aware, is one of the SaaS offerings from Microsoft in the field of BI and Analytics. It provides a very intuitive way for non-technical users to do analyses and create reports on their own without having to rely on a technical team. One of the main purposes of Microsoft behind Power BI is to promote self-service BI and it is one of the BI tools in the market with a comparatively lower learning curve as there are many similarities compared to Microsoft Excel.
Read more »How to deploy SSAS cubes
April 9, 2020In this article, I’m going to discuss the different ways in which we can deploy SSAS cubes. SSAS or SQL Server Analysis Services is an enterprise-grade analytical data engine which helps business to create semantic models that can be used for reporting and making better decisions. The semantic layer created by SSAS can be accessed by client tools like Power BI, or Excel and reports can be prepared from thereon. SSAS comes with a few different versions, which are as follows.
Read more »Understanding the deadlock definition in SQL Server
April 7, 2020This article explains the deadlock definition in SQL Server, and it also mentions how to capture deadlocks with extended events.
Read more »How to update the T-SQL Toolbox database
April 6, 2020Introduction
In an earlier article, Solve Time Zone, GMT, and UTC problems using the T-SQL Toolbox database, I described T-SQL Toolbox, a free, open-source SQL Server database that handles time zone, date, and time calculations in a clean and efficient way. Available here at the CodePlex Archive, and here at GitLab, T-SQL Toolbox relies on time zone and time zone adjustment data in its two tables for many of its own calculations. However, T-SQL Toolbox does not update that data. I built primitive C-Sharp and VB.net applications that extract the latest time zone and time zone adjustment data from the Windows registry, and I discussed those applications in that earlier SQL Shack article. In the article, I explained that we can build SQL Server UPDATE statements with this extracted data, and then update the T-SQL Toolbox tables. This article describes a better approach and a better solution.
Read more »Start your journey with Azure Cosmos DB
April 6, 2020In this article, we will discuss why we need to use Azure Cosmos DB and how to configure it to store and query our data.
Read more »Table-Valued Parameters in SQL Server
April 6, 2020Table-Valued Parameters aka TVPs are commonly used to pass a table as a parameter into stored procedures or functions. They are helpful in a way, we can use a table as an input to these routines and we can get rid of dealing more complex steps to achieve this process.
Read more »Analyze coronavirus data with Power BI Desktop visualizations
April 6, 2020This article gives you an overview of representing coronavirus spread using Power BI Desktop visualizations.
Read more »Working with images in Power BI Desktop reports
April 6, 2020Introduction
In the article Web URL configuration in a Power BI Desktop report, we explored a different method to use Web URL in a Power BI report. Images help to improve the visual appearance of a report. You can convey messages easily using these images in a report.
Read more »Warnings in SSAS Cubes
April 3, 2020In this article, I’m going to list out some of the most common warnings we encounter while developing SSAS Cubes and the reason for those warnings. As you are aware, SSAS cubes are developed using the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) for Analysis Services (Visual Studio), all the examples will be taken from Visual Studio 2017 only.
Read more »How to compare two SQL databases from Visual Studio
April 3, 2020Visual Studio is an application that is used by many developers and it has different kinds of features that can facilitate the developer’s work. Among these features, Visual Studio offers users the feature to compare two SQL databases via its Schema compare feature.
Read more »Dynamic Pivot Tables in SQL Server
April 2, 2020In this article, I am going to explain how we can create a dynamic pivot table in SQL Server. Pivot tables are a piece of summarized information that is generated from a large underlying dataset. It is generally used to report on specific dimensions from the vast datasets. Essentially, the user can convert rows into columns. This gives the users the ability to transpose columns from a SQL Server table easily and create reports as per the requirements.
Read more »An overview of the DTExec utility in SSIS
April 2, 2020DTExec is a tool used to configure and execute SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages. Many developers and database administrators use this tool, especially when automating the package execution using third-party applications or non-supported programming languages.
Read more »Understanding Dynamic Data Masking in SQL Server
April 2, 2020In this article, I’m going to explain the Dynamic Data Masking feature in SQL Server. As it goes by the name, Dynamic Data Masking is one of the security features that was introduced in SQL Server 2016. In an ever-growing digital era, the security of ones’ data has become one of the most important and expensive deals. Everyone expects their data to be protected as their own asset and like to treat it with the highest efficiency possible.
Read more »Accessing Azure Blob Storage from Azure Databricks
April 2, 2020We introduced Azure Databricks, how it is created and some of its important components in my previous article here. We will look at how we can work with Azure Blob Storage in Azure Databricks in this article.
Read more »Learn SQL: SQL Query examples
March 31, 2020In the previous article we’ve practiced SQL, and today, we’ll continue with a few more SQL examples. The goal of this article is to start with a fairly simple query and move towards more complex queries. We’ll examine queries you could need at the job interview, but also some you would need in real-life situations. So, buckle up, we’re taking off!
Read more »Scroller visual for Stock price movements in Power BI Desktop
March 31, 2020In the article, Candlestick chart for stock data analysis in Power BI Desktop, we explored Power BI Desktop to analyze stock prices. If you follow the stock market, you might have noticed a ticker (similar to the following image) showcasing stock prices and changes since the last close price. It shows an up and down indicator depending upon the positive or negative change in the stock price.
Read more »Introduction to Row-Level Security in SQL Server
March 31, 2020In this article, I’m going to discuss Row-Level Security in SQL Server. RLS or Row-Level Security as the name suggests is a security mechanism that restricts the records from a SQL Server table based on the authorization context of the current user that is logged in. This means the records from the tables are displayed based on who the user is and to which records do the user has access to. This is usually done to allow specific users to have access to their data only without permission to view other users’ data.
Read more »Overview of Solutions and Projects in SSMS
March 30, 2020DBAs and developers manage a broad set of queries, codes, applications. It is a good practice to organize code or t-SQL scripts so that we can easily access them without wasting time searching for them. You might use Visual Studio, GitHub source control for it. In this article, we look at how Solutions and Projects help to organize T-SQL scripts.
Read more »Working with SQL Server ROWCOUNT
March 30, 2020In this article, we will discuss the SQL Server @@ROWCOUNT and ROWCOUNT system objects by going through practical examples that cover most of these system objects usage.
Read more »How to use a Web data source in Power BI Desktop reports
March 30, 2020This article explores various ways to use a Web data source in Power BI Desktop reports.
Read more »Learn to write basic SQL Queries
March 27, 2020Essentially, SQL language allows us to retrieve and manipulate data on the data tables. In this article, we will understand and gain the ability to write fundamental SQL queries. At first, we will take a glance at the main notions that we need to know about in order to write database queries.
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