I love Chicago. I went to visit three times in 2023: a Redgate event, a volleyball tournament, and a wedding. Each time was a lot of fun and I look forward to coming back at the end of this month. The Redgate Summit is coming to Chicago on May 29. Three weeks from today! Register today and save your spot. If you get on the wait list, reach out to your account executive as they have their own tickets to give away. We’ve had two amazing Summits in Atlanta and London and we’re bringing the show to the Windy City. We’ll be covering a wide variety of topics related to databases, across three tracks ..read more

You can find the slidedeck for my Techorama session “Microsoft Fabric for Dummies” on github. The post Techorama 2024 – Slides first appeared on Under the kover of business intelligence. The post Techorama 2024 – Slides appeared first on SQLServerCentral ..read more

Can we normalize a couple of things? 1 – Trade Schools. Back in the 80’s trade classes in high school and post high school were frowned upon, or looked down upon. Is that still a thing? It shouldn’t be. I’ve had to rely on the expert skills of roofers, a plumber, HVAC experts, an electrician… The post Degrees and Trade Schools appeared first on DallasDBAs.com. The post Degrees and Trade Schools appeared first on SQLServerCentral ..read more

When I look at a system and think about its security model, the first thing I start poking around at is where I think security is weakest. For instance, if my target is a Microsoft SQL Server box, I don’t generally look for a weakness in SQL Server itself. I start looking at the operating system, I look at accounts that may have access, and since I’m really worried about the data being taken, I look to see how backups are handled and where they are written to. I believe I started to think like this because of playing a lot of chess growing up. In chess, the name of the game is to checkmate the ..read more

On Wednesday May 15th 2024 I will give a free webinar on MSSQLTips.com about Microsoft Fabric (at 6PM UTC). Abstract: Microsoft Fabric is the new all-encompassing data platform of Microsoft. But there are so many components, services, and features to learn, it may seem overwhelming. In this session, we step back and start from the beginning. We will cover the architectural overview of Fabric, its building blocks, and which use cases are covered by this platform. At the end of this webinar, you should be able to assess if Fabric is the right choice for your environment. Join us for a high-level ..read more

I recently reviewed, worked on, and added a similar example to the DATETIMEOFFSET Microsoft Learn Docs article at the recommendation of my colleague Randolph West, who guessed (accurately) I would enjoy such a task. It was a nice pre-Build diversion.  This topic is one that I have co-presented on in the past and hounded project capstone review presentations about. If you're not storing time zone offset in your date/time data, you're setting yourself up for future pain. That future pain is not what this blog post is about. One of the big complications of converting date/time data without t ..read more

Database administrators (DBAs) are the backbone of data-driven organizations. If you're looking to break into this field or climb the DBA career ladder, mastering SQL is absolutely crucial. Let's be real: If you want to call yourself a SQL DBA expert, those basic database skills won't cut it. To tackle the complex challenges, optimize performance, and truly impress those hiring managers, you need to go deeper. Think you're up for the challenge? Let's find out! Why SQL Matters for Database Administrators SQL is an indispensable tool for anyone working with relational databases. Here's why it's ..read more

Another security fundamentals topic is authentication versus authorization. For those who have a clear understanding of the difference between the two, like with Recovery Point Objective (RPO) vs. Recovery Time Objective (RTO), it is sometimes easy to forget that others mix them up. In a nutshell: Authentication is proving who you are. Authorization is what you’re allowed to do. Authorization is dependent on Authentication. If I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what your permissions are. One way I’ve recommended for folks to remember the difference is saying to yourself, “I authorize you t ..read more

mcfeely – adj. inexplicably moved by predictable and well-worn sentiments, even if they are trite or obvious or being broadcast blindly to the masses. I get mcfeely all the time. Recently I was listening to A Beautiful Life, from a movie by the same name. It’s a simple song, simple lyrics, but it creates a lot of emotion in me. It brings back memories of finding out my wife was pregnant with my daughter, of the early years when I put her to bed and read stories, of when she grew up and moved away for college. Music often does this for me, as do movies/television or even a well written passage ..read more

I posted on Terraform and Azure SQL last year but wanted to see what Bicep could do this year. I’m going to test Bicep out with Elastic Jobs. Table of Contents What is Bicep? Why Use Bicep? How to Use Bicep Bicep Existing Resources Bicep Azure SQL DB Bicep Elastic Job Agent Deploying Bicep Alerting on Elastic Jobs TL;DR—My bicep code is on GitHub. Please read this post before you do the Bicep code. Here are some great links from Microsoft to help you on your Bicep journey in general and, more specifically, with Elastic Jobs. I will walk you through the Bicep for the Elastic Job below ..read more