Many organisations still run their companies on SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2. There are many reasons to upgrade, but the most pressing reason is that extended support is running out. In this article, Brian Kelley explains what this means, tells you about some of the features you’ll gain if you upgrade, and provides some options. … Read more
Importing data from one system to another is a common task for database professionals. It’s possible to spend a lot of time figuring out what the schema should be for the target table. In this article, Rodney Landrum demonstrates an interesting solution to automatically figure out the data types and un-nest delimited data.… Read more
In this article, Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman continues teaching SQL Server DBAs how to navigate Linux. She demonstrates usings aliases, setting up environment variables, and examining processes.… Read more
In this article, Kathi Kellenberger demonstrates how to create a project and report using the SSRS Report Wizard. The wizard is fine for getting started, but you’ll soon learn about its many limitations. She also explains how reports fit in projects and solutions.… Read more
As database changes are added to the DevOps pipeline, unit testing of those changes becomes crucial. In this article, Adam Hafner describes unit testing and how it applies to databases.… Read more
SQL Server has many tools used to make it secure. In this article, Robert Sheldon demonstrates several of these features including SQL Server Configuration Manager and the Vulnerability Assessment tool.… Read more
Power BI is an excellent tool for departments or small organisations getting started with their BI solution. Unless some time is spent organising the solution, however, it can become cluttered. In this article, Gogula Aryalingam explains how to streamline the solution to keep it organized and efficient. … Read more
The JSON documents that are part of Cosmos DB document collections can be complex with arrays and nesting. In this article, Adam Aspin shows you how to query them with SQL.… Read more
The use of macOS by developers and IT professionals has gained popularity the past few years. Running a sandboxed SQL Server, however, has been difficult. That changed when Microsoft made SQL Server images on Docker available. In this article, Carlos Robles explains how to get started with Docker when running macOS. … Read more
A good day for a database administrator (DBA) is a lot like a good airline flight. A lot of excitement in either situation is bad. In a perfect world, a DBA will be productive and not spending most of their time “putting out fires.” (And fires are never a good idea on a flight!) DBAs … Read more
Gogula Aryalingam continues telling the story of the BI solution created by a business analyst intern. In this article, after the initial success, plans are made to sustain and grow the project.… Read more
Learning programming logic and syntax is just the beginning. In this article, David Njoku talks about how to debug and troubleshoot errors as a new developer.… Read more
Today I got a bit closer to a meaningful definition of automation as it applies to the software development process. I’ve been turning this concept over in my head for a while, which is partly related to the dreaded question of licensing. Why should licensing an automation product be related to the number of users? … Read more
In the previous article of this series, Andy Brown of Wise Owl Training explained how to use the oh-so-important CALCULATE function in DAX to make changes to the default filter context within a formula. This article shows how you can use the FILTER function to do something similar and explains the differences between the two approaches. … Read more
The Matrix is one of the many built-in visualizations found in Power BI. While the Matrix is easy to populate, filtering it is not so straightforward. In this article, Dennes Torres explains how to add a slicer that does the job.… Read more
A BI project should return value to the company quickly, not only after months or even years of work. In this article by Gogula Aryalingam, Ruthie, the intern, determines which items from her manager's requirements she can complete before the big meeting. She continues working on her semantic model by including a Date table, the star schema, measures, formatting, and more.… Read more
While architecting cloud native applications, you need to ensure that your system is highly available, performant, scalable, fault tolerant, and has the capability to recover from a disaster scenario. In this article, Samir Behara discusses the options available when designing the database architecture to achieve scalability.… Read more
SQL Server Reporting Services has changed quite a bit since it was introduced in 2004. Despite new analytic services like Power BI, SSRS is still a popular tool for paginated reports. In this article, Kathi Kellenberger explains the architecture of SSRS and walks you through installing an SSRS development environment on your workstation or laptop.… Read more
Building on the introduction to the SQL used by Cosmos DB in the first article in the series, here you will learn how to handle some of the more classic challenges that you may face when querying JSON documents. Adam Aspin shows you some of the workarounds that are useful in practice when finding and shaping output data ready for further analysis.… Read more
Security is, or at least should be, the priority for any IT system. In this article, Cynthia Dzikiti discusses the security aspects of ERP systems and some of the techniques used to protect data.… Read more
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Compliant Database DevOps
