A new SQL Execution Plan viewer

November 20, 2018 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous articles of this series (see the index at bottom), we discussed many aspects of the SQL Execution Plans, starting with the main concept of SQL Execution Plan generation, diving in the different types of the plans and showing how to analyze the components and operators of the SQL Execution Plans.

CDS for apps in the [POWER WORLD]

November 19, 2018 by Istvan Martinka

Executive Summary

CDS for Apps VS Power Query – is there a difference? If so, what is that difference? Are they mutually exclusive or complement each other? Later I briefly outline ~~Common Data Services for Analytics~~ no, ~~Power BI Datapools~~ no again, actually Power BI Data Flows. It is difficult to keep up with the correct naming.

Six different methods to copy tables between databases in SQL Server

November 16, 2018 by Prashanth Jayaram

In this article, you’ll learn the key skills that you need to copy tables between SQL Server instances including both on-premises and cloud SQL databases. In this article, I’ll walk-through several ways of copying a table(s) between SQL databases, helping you to see the benefits and trade-offs of each option.

Overview of the SQL CAST and SQL CONVERT functions in SQL Server

November 16, 2018 by Prashanth Jayaram

This article is an effort to discuss SQL Cast and SQL Convert functions as a follow-up to previous articles, in which we’ve discussed several SQL tips such as SQL Date, SQL Coalesce, SQL Union, SQL Join, SQL Like, SQL String etc.

Sometimes we need to convert data between different SQL data types. In addition to working with data, there are some built-in functions can be used to convert the data. So let’s take a closer look at the SQL conversion functions SQL CAST and SQL CONVERT in detail.

SQL Join introduction and overview

November 15, 2018 by Bojan Petrovic

A SQL Join clause is put within a Select statement and at the end, it’s given a join condition, which tells the database how to fetch your data. The column specified within the join condition must be preceded by a table name if the column name is the same in both tables. When a column is preceded with a table name, it’s known as a qualified column.

Columnstore Index Enhancements – data compression, estimates and savings

November 14, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

Data compression is required to reduce database storage size as well as improving performance for the existing data. SQL Server 2008 introduced Data compression as an enterprise version feature. Further to this, SQL Server 2016 SP1 and above supports data compression using the standard edition as well.

Candlestick chart for stock data analysis in Power BI Desktop

November 14, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

Candlestick chart for stock data analysis in Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop contains a wide range of custom visualizations which helps to represent and analysis of the data with extensive formatting options. You can effectively showcase your data and save time as well by creating complex data chart with simple configuration options.

SQL Execution Plan enhancements in SSMS 18.0

November 13, 2018 by Ahmad Yaseen

This article will provide an overview of the SSMS 18.0 with particular focus on improvements to the SQL execution plan feature. To work with Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine, you need to have an environment to edit, debug and deploy scripts written in different languages such as T-SQL, DAX, MDX, XML and JSON. In addition, you need a GUI tool that helps you to configure, query, monitor and administrate your SQL Server instances wherever they are hosted; locally at your machine, on a remote Windows or Linux server or in the cloud. All this can be achieved using SQL Server Management Studio aka SSMS.

SQL Like logical operator introduction and overview

November 13, 2018 by Bojan Petrovic

The SQL Like is a logical operator that is used to determine whether a specific character string matches a specified pattern. It is commonly used in a Where clause to search for a specified pattern in a column.

Overview of the SQL ROW_NUMBER function

November 13, 2018 by Prashanth Jayaram

In this article, we’re going to discuss the SQL ROW_NUMBER function. This is a continuation of the SQL essential series. In this guide, I’ll explain what a window function is all about, and you’ll see sample examples to understand the concepts behind the SQL ROW_NUMBER function.

The new SQL Server 2019 function Approx_Count_Distinct

November 9, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

SQL Server 2019 has a rich set of enhancements and new features. In particular, there are many new feature improvements in the database engine for better performance and query tuning.

How to use JSON data in Azure Machine Learning

November 9, 2018 by Esat Erkec

Azure Machine Learning (also known as Azure ML) is cloud-based machine learning solution of Microsoft. Microsoft Azure Machine Learning is a fully-managed cloud-based service that provides the ability to create and train predictive analytic solutions. Another advantage of Azure ML is that you can access and easily make changes anywhere in machine learning models with help of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio.

Hexbin Scatterplot in Power BI Desktop

November 9, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

We have explored useful visualizations in Power BI Desktop with my previous articles that covered:

Columnstore Index Enhancements – Index stats update in clone databases

November 9, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

SQL Server was launched in 1993 on WinNT and it completed its 25-year anniversary recently. SQL Server has come a long way since its first release. At the same time, Microsoft announced a preview version of SQL Server 2019. SQL Server 2019 provides the ability to extend its support to big data, Apache Spark, Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) and provides enhancements to database performance, security, new features, and enhancements to SQL Server on Linux.

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.

How to secure Reporting Services with Group Managed Service Accounts

November 7, 2018 by Craig Porteous

With Reporting Services’ (SSRS) ability to scale out to multiple hosts, you may quickly come across the need to reuse domain accounts. Updating passwords for such accounts becomes a lengthy and risky process often requiring downtime. You may have a reliable process, set in stone for updating service account credentials every 30, 60 or 90 days or you could be stumbling across accounts that haven’t changed in 5 years and the passwords are in a shared text file somewhere. In either case, there’s risk that’s hard to mitigate without magically creating more hours in the day.

Power BI desktop Mekko Charts

November 6, 2018 by Rajendra Gupta

In my last articles on Power BI Desktop (see the index at the bottom of the article), we have explored that Power BI has a rich set of visualizations. We can present data using various custom visuals available from Microsoft AppSource. These visuals are available free to download and use it as per our requirements.

Enhanced PolyBase SQL 2019 – External tables SQL Server, Catalog view and PushDown

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.

How to use JSON data in SSRS

November 6, 2018 by Esat Erkec

In this article, we will explore the concept of using JSON data in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). This usage concept will include a different approach than the usual methodologies because we will take advantage of SQL Server R service support.

What is JSON?

JSON is an abbreviation for JavaScriptObjectNotation. The main purpose of JSON data was to provide data transfer between server and web applications for JavaScript but today’s JSON is the most popular data interchange format. JSON offers two advantages to us. These are; light-weight text based format easily readable by humans. Currently, JSON is not only used in JavaScript applications, it is also used in all popular software programing languages like JavaScript, C++, C#, Perl, Java, Python, Php etc.

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.