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Month: February 2023

Working with Postgres Extensions in Azure Cosmos DB

Published 2023-02-17 by Kevin Feasel

Sarah Dutkiewicz runs into an issue:

Problem: I installed PostGIS on my single-node cluster without issues. However, I scaled my cluster to 2 nodes afterwards. When I ran the query that uses ST_X and ST_Y from PostGIS, I got the following error:

ERROR:  type "public.geometry" does not exist
CONTEXT:  while executing command on private-w0.azure-cosmos-db-global-ug-demo.postgres.database.azure.com:5432

When I read the CONTEXT message, I realized by the w# reference that the worker nodes didn’t have PostGIS installed. When you scale the nodes – at least in this case, it doesn’t enable the extensions over there.

Read on to see how Sarah was able to resolve this issue.

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SQL Server 2022 CU1 and SQL Server 2019 CU19 Released

Published 2023-02-17 by Kevin Feasel

Srinivas Kandibanda and Harvey Mora have announcements:

The 1st cumulative update release for SQL Server 2022 RTM is now available for download at the Microsoft Downloads site. Please note that registration is no longer required to download Cumulative updates.

Both of these came out several months later than expected, though with the big GDR that dropped yesterday, it seems like that cleared up the logjam.

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Visualizing Moving Averages in R with healthyR.ts

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Steven Sanderson shows off a useful R library:

Are you interested in visualizing time series data in a clear and concise way? The R package {healthyR.ts} provides a variety of tools for time series analysis and visualization, including the ts_ma_plot() function.

The ts_ma_plot() function is designed to help you quickly and easily create moving average plots for time series data. This function takes several arguments, including the data you want to visualize, the date column from your data, the value column from your data, and the frequency of the aggregation.

Read on to learn more about this plot and see an example of it in action.

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Estimating Quantiles in Python

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Christian Lorentzen digs into quantile calculation:

Applied statistics is dominated by the ubiquitous mean. For a change, this post is dedicated to quantiles. I will give my best to provide a good mix of theory and practical examples.

While the mean describes only the central tendency of a distribution or random sample, quantiles are able to describe the whole distribution. They appear in box-plots, in childrens’ weight-for-age curves, in salary survey results, in risk measures like the value-at-risk in the EU-wide solvency II framework for insurance companies, in quality control and in many more fields.

There are easy functions to calculate quantiles in R and Python; this post serves as a way of understanding the variety of quantile functions available and how they can affect results with small sample sizes.

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Azure Defender for SQL Overview

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Deepthi Goguri looks at an Azure security offering:

Azure Defender for SQL, once you enable it will alert you for any SQL injection attacks, brute force attacks or any breached identities trying to access the data of your database. It also provides the vulnerability assessments. Vulnerability assessments give you alerts about the configurations of your database. If your database configuration is not following the standards of Azure, you will receive the alerts in the vulnerability assessment report.

You can enable the Azure Defender at the subscription level or at the Server level or at the resource level as well. Under the recommendations in the security center in the Azure portal, check for the Remediate security configuration. This will show if the Azure defender is configured properly.

I like Azure Defender for SQL, especially the advanced threat protection element. It’s based on IP address location and has caught me in different locations as I’ve traveled.

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Azure ML Overview

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Sanil Mhatre gets us started with Azure Machine Learning:

The five-part series is designed to jump-start any IT professional’s journey in the fascinating world of Data Science with Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML). Readers don’t need prior knowledge of Data Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or Azure to begin this adventure.

All you will need is an Azure subscription and I will show you how to get a free one that you can use to explore some of Azure’s features before I show you how to set up the Azure ML environment.

Part 1 is available now, with the other parts coming up soon. Even so, Part 1 is a big article on its own.

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Deploying a dacpac to the Serverless SQL Pool

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Kevin Chant drops some dacpacs off at the (serverless) pool:

In this post I want to cover deploying a dacpac to a serverless SQL pool using Azure DevOps. Yes, you are reading that right. It is now possible thanks to a sqlpackage update.

To clarify, a dacpac file is a special file that you can use to deploy updates to SQL Server related databases using a state-based deployment. Plus, when I say serverless SQL pool I mean an Azure Synapse Analytics serverless SQL Pool.

Kevin includes examples for Azure DevOps as well as GitHub Actions.

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Power BI Dataset Scale-Out

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Teo Lachev digs into a preview feature:

Microsoft announced a public preview of Power BI Dataset scale-out (DSO) for Power Premium, Premium per User (PPU), and Power BI Embedded. In the comments below the announcement, the article implies that this feature is a replacement for the Azure Analysis Services scale-out. “If you have an AAS scale out and you migrate your databases (aka models aka datasets aka cubes) to Power BI Premium, you get scale out automatically and at no extra cost.” Scaling out for free? Sure, where do I sign?

But then further down the comments, we have this clarification “[Power BI DSO happens] if a dataset is on peak load and the vcores of your capacity aren’t maxed out. Keep in mind that scalability on a single instance isn’t linear. By scaling out, we can achieve a better utilization of available CPU resources for high workloads. On the other hand, if your vcores are already maxed out, then scaling out brings no further perf benefit.” Confused? So was I, and I reached for clarification to Microsoft. Below, is my best understanding of what happens behind the scenes.

Click through for the answer.

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Security Updates for SQL Server 2014 and Up

Published 2023-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Harvey Mora notes that Microsoft has been busy:

The Security Update for SQL Server 2022 RTM GDR is now available for download at the Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update Catalog sites. This package includes the new security fixes detailed in the KB Article.

This link is specifically for SQL Server 2022 but there are other posts for 2019, 2017, 2016, and 2014. This includes fixes to several security problems and is something you should install post-haste. Because this is a GDR, you’re also liable to find it in Windows Update if your update admins haven’t shut that channel off already.

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Making Star Maps in R

Published 2023-02-15 by Kevin Feasel

Benjamin Smith builds a map:

Continuing my explorations in developing custom map art, I decided to take a detour from developing the mapBliss package to explore another type of map which is very popular in the map-art space- star and constellation maps! This initially started out as an issue opened on the mapBliss Github. However, I quickly realized the framework required for making star maps is completely different from making regular maps for custom fight paths and road trips.

Read on to learn more about the problem and what libraries are available to help in R.

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