Since we have presented a way to review the history of committed changes using Git, Team Foundation Server and Subversion, let’s check how the same can be achieved when working with the Mercurial source control system.
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Storing Twitter feeds with Microsoft Flow in Azure SQL Database
June 29, 2016A couple of weeks ago I got this idea to capture twitter feeds and store it in a relational database structure. I wanted to be able to do some trend analysis, to see what days certain hashtags get used more than other as well as to be able to go back to certain tweets and see what I can learn from them. I tried to get the Twitter API to work for me, but had no luck. So I came across Microsoft Flow which seems to make this process very easy.
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New options in SQL Server Management Studio 2016
June 28, 2016This article will introduce some minor, but very handy improvements in SSMS 2016, such as options for preventing the appearance of a dialog box for saving queries, setting up color of the interface theme, highlighting the current line and checking for a new SSMS updates.
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SQL Server policy-based management
June 27, 2016SQL Server Policy-Based Management was introduced in SQL Server 2008, to make it easy for database administrators to define and enforce SQL Server best practices and company standards in the form of policies. This feature is available in both Enterprise and Standard SQL Server Editions.
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Setting SSIS package encryption manually in SSMS
June 24, 2016The whole process of encryption of SSIS packages in SSMS relies on the Import Package and Export Package options; specifically, the combination of performing both of mentioned options in particular order, while choosing and setting the appropriate ProtectionLevel in the process.
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Format DBMail with HTML and CSS
June 23, 2016Background
In my organization, the developers send a lot of database generated emails for informational purposes to ensure that everything in the system is still working 100%.We can call them production messages. Normally the way the email is presented is not important as it is only meant for the developer to help with system health check, but every now and again a business user would ask for the report (which was never meant to be an actual report) and then we would include the business user in the distribution list for this email.
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What’s new in SQL Server 2016 summary
June 22, 2016SQL Server 2016 became publically available on the 1st of June 2016. Some might feel that a new SQL Server release every 2 years might be too frequent with many organization still lagging behind by running SQL Server 2012 or earlier.
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Warehousing JSON formatted data in SQL Server 2016
June 22, 2016In this article, I continue to review the exciting features available in SQL Server 2016. One such feature is the long awaited T-SQL support for JSON formatted data. In this article we take a look at how JSON support will impact data warehouse solutions.
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Stretching temporal history tables in SQL Server 2016
June 20, 2016Background
With the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 a lot of new features were introduced, one of which was Temporal Tables, a feature that gives you the ability to view the state of your data at a given point in time. This means you can go back in time with your data. Another very popular feature is Stretch Databases which allows for remote archiving of data to Azure Stretch region.
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New feature in SQL Server Management Studio 2016 – Scroll bar
June 20, 2016One of the new enhancements in SQL Server Management Studio 2016 (SSMS) is the Scroll Bars tab, in which can be set various of settings for vertical scroll bar.
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Query optimizer changes in SQL Server 2016 explained
June 17, 2016Description
SQL Server 2016 includes a variety of query optimizer enhancements. Some of these have existed since the first previews while others were added later. This is an opportunity to discuss, test out, and validate the behavior and benefits of these changes!
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Best practices to configure the index create memory setting in SQL Server
June 15, 2016Introduction
The Index Create Memory setting is an advanced SQL Server configuration setting which the SQL Server database engine uses to control the amount of maximum memory which can be allocated towards the creation of an index. In this article, we will take a look at the steps to resolve the below mentioned error message.
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The system msdb database, introduction and tips
June 14, 2016Introduction
In a previous article, we talked about the tempdb system database. In this article, we will talk about the msdb database.
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SQL Server network configuration
June 14, 2016SQL Server Network Configuration involves enabling the protocols that manage the connection to the SQL Server and configuring the available options for these network protocols. It also provides the means to encrypt the communication between the SQL Server instance and the client applications and hide the SQL Server instance from being browsed. SQL Server Network Configuration can be managed using the SQL Server Configuration Manager tool.
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New feature in SQL Server Management Studio 2016 – Quick Launch
June 14, 2016What is Quick Launch?
Quick Launch is a new feature that is added in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2016. Quick Launch is search tool, but it doesn’t search code/contents of the script/files. Instead it searches SSMS itself including menu items, options and file names. Quick Launch is enabled by default when SSMS is installed and it is located at the top right corner of the menu bar (see below):
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How to migrate users to a partially contained database in SQL Server
June 13, 2016Introduction
Microsoft introduced the Contained Database feature in SQL Server 2012. In this article we will take a look at how to migrate SQL Server Logins to a partially contained database in SQL Server to remove dependencies from the Instance of SQL Server where Contained Database resides.
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Is this the end of SQL Profiler?
June 13, 2016Introduction
SQL Server Profiler is still a tool used to monitor our relational databases and our multidimensional ones. We used for performance and security purposes. However, in the SQL Server 2016, they announced that the SQL Profiler will be deprecated in future versions.
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Querying remote data sources in SQL Server
June 10, 2016A common activity when writing T-SQL queries is connecting to local databases and processing data directly. But there will be situations in which you need to connect to a remote database that is located in a different instance in the same server or in a different physical server, and process its data in parallel with the local data processing.
SQL Server provides us with four useful methods to connect to the remote database servers, even other database server types, and query its data within your T-SQL statement. In this article, we will discuss these four methods and how to use it to query remote SQL Server databases.
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Troubleshooting the CXPACKET wait type in SQL Server
June 8, 2016The SQL Server CXPACKET wait type is one of the most misinterpreted wait stats. The CXPACKET term came from Class Exchange Packet, and in its essence, this can be described as data rows exchanged among two parallel threads that are the part of a single process. One thread is the “producer thread” and another thread is the “consumer thread”. This wait type is directly related to parallelism and it occurs in SQL Server whenever SQL Server executes a query using the parallel plan.
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How to handle excessive SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD wait type values in SQL Server
June 8, 2016The SQL Server SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD is a fairly common wait type and it could indicate one of two things:
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Revision history of an object change in a SQL database using Subversion
June 7, 2016In previous articles, I have already covered the revision history for Git and Team Foundation Server. Similarly, this article covers the revision history of committed changesets using Subversion as the source control system.
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Installing SQL Server 2016
June 7, 2016Introduction
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 provides faster transactions and queries, deeper insights on any device, advanced analytics, new security technology, and new hybrid cloud scenarios. Along with these features, comes the new installation setup. Although it is similar to the installation of SQL Server 2014 and other older versions, there are few notable differences:
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Useful DBCC log commands
June 1, 2016Background
When we’re architecting or troubleshooting issues in an environment, understanding how the log is set up and its history helps us identify if improving it will carry significant impacts overall. We have some built in tools that we can use, such as DBCC LOGINFO and DBCC SQLPERF and in this tip we look at how we can use them when we’re debugging issues, designing our logs for scale, or monitoring our current setup. We also look at some ways we can retain the information these provide so that we can use this for historic measurements and benchmarking, as well as using them for potentially alerting.
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SQL Server 2014 contained databases
June 1, 2016SQL Server provides two ways to authenticate users; SQL Server Authentication, which requires a predefined username and password to connect to the SQL Server, and Windows Authentication, in which SQL Server trusts the windows integrated user. The server level user that is authenticated to connect to the SQL Server is called a Server Login. This login should be mapped to a database user and granted permissions at the database level in order to access the database and be able to perform the authorized tasks. The relationship between the Server login and the database user in addition to the database metadata stored in the master system database draw up the dependencies between the SQL Server databases the server-level resources.
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Single package deployment in SQL Server Integration Services 2016
May 31, 2016SQL Server 2016 has some exciting enhancements to SQL Server Integration Services. In this article, we take a look at how the issue of single package deployment into an SSIS Catalog has been resolved with this SQL Server release.
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