Extended Events is a very important feature to monitor Azure SQL. Recently I faced a very interesting behavior of this feature in relation to the use of the slash (“/”). URL’s use the “/” on it. However, the “/” has different meanings depending on where in the URL it appears. Create a credential for authentication … Read more
Azure Cost Management is in constant evolution to help manage the cost of services in the cloud. Microsoft provides the Azure Cost Management Power BI App to manage cloud costs, but this app only works with Enterprise Agreement accounts. This was a considerable limitation, since many companies use the cloud using Customer Agreement instead of … Read more
Policies in Azure are like Wally. They are there, but not obvious to find, hidden in the middle of many services, waiting for someone recognize their importance. Why do we need Policies Billing The billing control in Azure has by itself many different reasons to enforce policies. You, with your single Azure subscription, may think … Read more
Log Analytics is a basic tool for the entire Azure environment, I wrote about it before. The possibility to access log analytics data from a tool for analysis, such as Power BI, only increases its importance. There are some options to make this access and we expect these options to improve very soon. Using Notebooks … Read more
Azure technologies evolve so fast sometimes we lose track of what’s happening. One day, a simple technology is created, on the next day, it becomes something huge, in a blink of an eye. I’m not even sure if my recollection of the story will be correct. The launch of the GA version of Static Web … Read more
Azure Monitor and Log Analytics are a very important part of Azure infrastructure. In my opinion, the adoption of these tools should start before a company starts its migration to azure. Using these tools over on premises servers can generate a performance baseline to be used when migrating the servers, ensuring the environment will be … Read more
Azure Functions are a great development tool, allowing us to create serverless software. However, one detail was bothering me when I create a function: The HTTP Trigger receives a HTTPRequest object and we need to extract the parameters from the request. This becomes kind of a low-level code mixed with our business code. It’s like going … Read more
Azure SQL has a close relationship with Azure Storage. Features like Polybase, backups, extended events and more make use of Azure Storage. On Azure SQL Database, probably the most common use is Extended Events. When we create a file target, we need to point to the Azure Storage URL where the file will be stored. … Read more
Data Lakes are becoming more usual every day and the need for tools to query them also increases. While writing about querying a data lake using Synapse, I stumbled upon a Power BI feature I didn’t know was there. When reading from a data lake, each folder is like a table. We store in the … Read more
You may have noticed the export feature on Azure resource groups don’t like too much the Data Factory. We can’t completely export a Data Factory as an ARM template, it fails. Probably you know you don’t need to care about this too much. You can link the data factory with a github repo and get … Read more
One great result from PASS Summit, especially when we are close to a new SQL Server release, is to identify important technologies to study on the following year. PASS Summit 2018 was great, with sessions about many new technologies giving us very good guidance on where to focus our study for the new year. Let’s … Read more
Azure SQL Data Warehouse is a fully-managed and scalable cloud service. It is still in preview, but solid. Not only is it compatible with several other Azure offerings, such as Machine Learning and Data Factory, but also with various existing SQL Server tools and Microsoft products. It talks Power BI. Are we now seeing the final piece of the Azure jigsaw fall into place?… Read more
Some of the most intractable problems of application design are concerned with how to store credentials for accessing sensitive application data, keys and, configuration settings in code. With Azure Key Vault you don't have to. You can, instead just authorise an application to access and use a Key Vault and perform operations that require authentication against a KeyVault. Christos Matskas shows how an application can interact with the service, using a node.JS application as an example.… Read more
The whole point of using a cloud service is to be able to use it intensively for a brief period just when it is needed and then clear out all your work when you've finished. This means automation to make the process as quick and easy as possible. It is likely to mean creating a VM, provisioning it from scratch and spinning it up using PowerShell. Relax, grab the popcorn, and let Adam Bertram show you how he does it in Azure.… Read more
No longer do developers need to store sensitive application data, keys and, configuration settings in code - Azure Key Vault can store them for our applications on the cloud. Christos Matskas shows how to provision a new Key Vault in Azure using the Azure PowerShell cmdlets, and how to authorise an application to access and use a Key Vault.… Read more
The name 'Azure Key Vault' hides a valuable Azure service that allows us to easily protect our Cloud data by putting sound cryptography in Cloud applications without having to store or manage the keys or secrets. This makes it far easier to manage cloud data in applications in a way that that complies with industry-standards for sensitive data.… Read more
DocumentDB only uses SQL for querying data. To create procedures and functions, you have to flex your JavaScript skills to create JavaScript functions that are saved to a DocumentDB collection. Robert Sheldon shows how it is done. … Read more
DocumentDB is a late-entrant in the Document-oriented database field. However, it benefits from being designed from the start as a cloud service with a SQL-like language. It is intended for mobile and web applications. Its JSON document-notation is compatible with the integrated JavaScript language that drives its multi-document transaction processing via stored procedures, triggers and UDFs.… Read more
The Data Lake is basically a large repository of data for 'big data' analytic workloads, held in its original format. The Azure Data Lake adds Data Lake Analytics, and Azure HDInsight. Although the tools are there for Big Data Analysis, it will require new skills to use, and a heightened attention to Data Governance if it is to appeal to the average enterprise.… Read more
Once you've built your BizTalk solution, you will need to deploy and monitor it. Matt Milner shows that, while there are several ways to monitor your solution, and manual deployment via Visual Studio, the automated deployment of BizTalk solutions is probably best served by Azure IaaS with BizTalk Server virtual machines.… Read more
Compliant Database DevOps
Standardize team-based development
Automate database deployments
Monitor performance and availability
Protect and preserve data
