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Author: Kevin Feasel

Handling Multiple Snapshots on a Database

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Andy Brownsword lets things get out of hand:

Last week we looked at using Database Snapshots to help with rolling back upgrades. The snapshot maintained a point in time copy of the database which could be later restored.

We can go further – a database can have multiple snapshots.

Let’s suppose we want to take one before an upgrade, another once the upgrade is complete, and another before the start of business the following day. This would provide us multiple points to restore too.

This however makes restoring more complicated.

My recollection is that it’s not just restoration that gets more complicated, but also any database activity, to the point where too many database snapshots on a single database can have a considerable performance impact.

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Working with grep in R

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Steven Sanderson performs a pattern match:

In R, finding patterns in text is a common task, and one of the most powerful functions to do this is grep(). This function is used to search for patterns in strings, allowing you to locate elements that match a specific pattern. Today, we’ll explore how to use wildcard characters with grep() to enhance your string searching capabilities. Let’s dive in!

Read on to learn more about how to use the grep() function.

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Creating a Custom Shape Map in Power BI

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Elena Drakulevska builds a map:

Are you aiming for that WOW effect when your client opens your report? I’ve found that people often experience an immediate sense of awe when they see a map visual, especially when it’s conditionally formatted to highlight, for example, which country has the highest sales. So, I thought I’d share how you can achieve this and go beyond the built-in shape maps in Power BI. Let’s transform your global data into compelling visual stories!

Click through to learn more about the technique.

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Defining the Default Lakehouse for a Fabric Notebook

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Sandeep Pawar sets up a default lakehouse:

I wrote a blog post a while ago on mounting a lakehouse (or generally speaking a storage location) to all nodes in a Fabric spark notebook. This allows you to use the File API file path from the mounted lakehouse.

Mounting a lakehouse using mssparkutils.fs.mount() doesn’t define the default lakehouse of a notebook. To do so, you can use the configure magic as below:

Read on for that command, as well as some notes around using it.

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Contoso Data Generator v2

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Marco Russo announces an updated product:

I am proud to announce the second version of the Contoso Data Generator!

In January 2022, we released the first version of an open-source project to create a sample relational database for semantic models in Power BI and Analysis Services. That version focused on creating a SQL Server database as a starting point for the semantic model.

We invested in a new version to support more scenarios and products! Yes, Power BI is our primary focus, but 90% of our work could have been helpful for other platforms and architectures, so… why not?

Read on to see how you can use this and generate as much data as you want.

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Working with Managed Entities in Azure SQL DB

Published 2024-07-26 by Kevin Feasel

Josephine Bush creates and uses a managed identity:

Benefits of Using Managed Identities and Entra Groups

  • Enhanced Security: Using managed identities eliminates the need to manage credentials, reducing the risk of credential theft.
  • Simplified Management: Entra Groups streamline the management of permissions for multiple users or managed identities, making it easier to apply consistent access policies.
  • Scalability: As your organization grows, you can easily manage access by adding new users or managed identities to Entra Groups without needing to update database permissions individually.

Read on to see how you can create one and what you can do with it.

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Changing Distributions and Simpson’s Paradox

Published 2024-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

Jerry Tuttle describes a paradox:

So you spent hours, or maybe days, cranking out thousands of numbers, you submit it to your boss just at the deadline, your boss quickly peruses your exhibit of numbers, points to a single number and says, “This number doesn’t look right.” Bosses have an uncanny ability to do this.

      Your boss is pointing to something like this: Your company sells property insurance on both personal and commercial properties. The average personal property premium increased 10% in 2024. The average commercial property premium increased 10% in 2024. But you say the combined average property premium decreased 3% in 2024. You realize that negative 3% does not look right.

Although the blog post doesn’t explicitly mention Simpson’s paradox, I’d argue that this is a good example of the idea. H/T R-Bloggers.

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Plotting Individual Values and Means of Multiple Groups in R

Published 2024-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

Ali Oghabian builds a graph:

In this post I show how groupScatterPlot(), function of the rnatoolbox R package can be used for plotting the individual values in several groups together with their mean (or other statistics). I think this is a useful function for plotting grouped data when some groups (or all groups) have few data points ! You may be wondering why to include such function in the rnatoolbox package ?! Well ! I happen to use it quit a bit for plotting expression values of different groups of genes/transcripts in a sample or expression levels of a specific gene/transcript in several sample groups.

Click through for the sample code and output. H/T R-Bloggers.

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Comparing Configuration of Two SQL Server Instances

Published 2024-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

Jana Sattainathan checks the labels on these bottles:

A lot of times, you have nearly identical database servers for an application running in Production, Test and Development but you may notice performance differences between them for the same data/queries that you could not attribute to any reason since CPU, Memory, Disk etc., may all be identical.

This is, strictly speaking, a comparison of configurations rather than data differences, indexing, and the like. Nonetheless, it’s useful to make this sort of comparison just to ensure that your instances have your desired state configuration.

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Microsoft Purview Classifications and Sensitivity Labels

Published 2024-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

James Serra labels the data:

I see a lot of confusion on how classifications and sensitivity labels work in Microsoft Purview. This blog will help to clear that up, but I first must address the confusion with Purview now that multiple products have been renamed to Microsoft Purview. I decided to use a question-and-answer format that will hopefully clear up the confusion (I was very confused too!):

Purview is a fantastic product. I just wish it cost about 10% as much as it does; then I could heartily recommend it to people.

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