I was recently asked if I thought getting a Microsoft certification was valuable. I see quite a few benefits. Certifications might help your company become a Microsoft Gold Partner, and certification may be a selling point when assigning consultants to engagements. For me, the big benefits have been about learning new features and getting to … Read more
Defects in software can occur in any phase of the software creation process. The earlier and better they are managed, the easier they are to correct. In this article, Afsana Atar explains defect management, including prevention and resolution.… Read more
Now that the GDPR has gone into effect, many are wondering what will happen in the United States. California is the first state to enact similar legislation, called the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA). In this article, William Brewer explains the history of the law, what it means for companies doing business with California residents, and how it compares to the GDPR.… Read more
Azure Storage can store many types of data, from NoSQL tables to VHDs. In this article, Supriya Pande explains how to work with Azure Storage Explorer, a tool that makes it easy to manage storage in Azure. She also provides an example of using the Azure Storage .NET SDK to upload files.… Read more
Performance is important to video game players. If a game is slow, the player may experience unintended difficulties in timing, positioning, and much more. Unity added a job system with the 2018.1 update which allows multithreaded code which can improve performance. In this article, Lance Talbert walks you through using the new job system.… Read more
Power BI Desktop is typically used to create reports that will eventually be published to Power BI Services where dashboards can be built. Robert Sheldon demonstrates how to publish reports from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service. Once published, the visualizations can be filtered, drilled into, or pinned to a dashboard.… Read more
Since the GDPR has gone into effect, the focus has often been on databases. There are many other ways that personally identifiable data may be stored by an organization. In this article, David Poole shows how to use Bash and PowerShell to locate that data in file shares… Read more
As a data professional or developer, you will likely have questions about how HIPAA impacts you and your day to day responsibilities. Rebecca Edwards answers common questions about HIPAA that you were too shy to ask… Read more
There is often more than one way to write a query that returns the same results, but some methods may perform better than others. In this article, Ben Brumm discusses ten best practice when writing SQL code for Oracle. … Read more
Testing your PowerShell scripts is just as important as testing any code. In this article, Robert Cain demonstrates how to use the testing tool, Pester, to perform unit, integration, and acceptance testing.… Read more
Security, compliance, and data ethics are related concepts that everyone who works with software should know about, from the help desk to the C-level office… but almost everyone thinks that worrying about these things is someone else’s problem. As data breaches become increasingly common and data privacy regulations pass in more regions, there are increasing … Read more
As running SQL Server on Linux becomes more common, DBAs must learn and become comfortable with the Linux OS. In this article, Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman demonstrates how to create a SQL Server instance running in Linux via a Docker container.… Read more
Kerberos authentication is a topic that many database administrators avoid. It’s really not that difficult to understand, but it’s also easy to get wrong. In this article, Kathi Kellenberger talks about what you need to know about configuring Kerberos for SSRS and SQL Server databases but were too shy to ask.… Read more
Power BI contains rich visualizations that allow anyone to build insightful dashboards. In this article, Robert Sheldon shows you how to create Power BI charts, tables, maps, and slicers, … Read more
Most of us haven’t learned everything we know about technology from books or classes. Instead, when things go wrong, a quick search on Google or Bing typically brings up possible solutions from others who have experienced the same problem. I often wonder about that unfortunate guy who is the first to tackle a difficult issue. … Read more
Everyone knows how important code testing is, and to be thorough, you must automate testing. This includes scripts such as those written in PowerShell as well. In this article, Robert Cain introduces Pester, a tool for testing PowerShell code.… Read more
The Azure Cosmos DB Emulator can be used to develop Cosmos DB applications without a cost for the Azure service. In this article, Suhas Pande demonstrates several common tasks using C# and the emulator: creating databases, collections, and documents.… Read more
Despite the attention to data privacy and protection caused this year because of the GDPR, regulations governing how data is handled are nothing new. In this article, Robert Sheldon provides an overview of two US regulations, HIPAA and SOX, and explains how these regulations affect DBAs. … Read more
PowerShell is the preferred scripting tool used by Windows and Active Directory administrators. It can also be used to administer SQL Server or even just export data. In this article, Greg Moore demonstrates how to use the PowerShell cmdlet Invoke-SQLCMD to export data from SQL Server.… Read more
Along with the GDPR, regulations require that confidential data is protected and used properly. In this article, William Brewer discusses the ways that data manages to migrate around the organisation and the challenges found in protecting that data.… Read more
Compliant Database DevOps
