A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
<sigh> Okay, so, the last few Cumulative Updates have had known issues around broken remote queries using the generic ODBC connector and errors with contained availability groups, but I couldn’t really care less about those. If you use those features, I give you bombastic side eye anyway.
However, in the last few days, two more known issues have surfaced.
And those two issues are definitely bad. Click through to see what they are and what the workarounds are until fixes come in.
Comments closedErik Darling explains why he is not a fan in this video on the topic.
Because there’s no text, I’ll hit on the points:
Click through for the video. Erik also talks a bit about cost threshold for parallelism.
Comments closedReza Rad has two videos and posts for us. First up is a primer on data pipelines in Microsoft Fabric Data Factory:
The Pipeline comes from Azure Data Factory. A Pipeline is a group of activities bundled together into a workflow. For example, a Pipeline can generate a process around the Dataflow. For example, you may want to run a Dataflow in a loop until something happens, and with the failure or success of each execution, you want to perform a task such as sending out an email, copying data somewhere, running a stored procedure, etc.
Reza then gets into Dataflows:
Comments closedThrough the years, the Data Transformation engines evolved. In the past, much coding was involved, and the user interface was not the best experience. These days, most actions can be done through pre-built transformations; less coding is needed, and a hardcore developer is not needed for preliminary tasks. This enables citizen data engineers to work with these tools.
Power Query is the data transformation engine of the new generation of Microsoft Data Integration tools and services. Power Query is the data transformation engine used in Power BI. However, Power Query can be used as a standalone cloud-based data transformation service when it is used as Dataflow. Dataflow is the ETL in the cloud offered by Microsoft, which uses the Power Query engine.
Eitan Blumin has a script for us:
In this ultimate guide, learn how to fix high VLF counts and shrink transaction logs in SQL Server to improve performance. Discover best practices for managing transaction log sizes and VLFs, and get your hands on a robust script to help you out. Boost your SQL Server’s performance and optimize your database administration with these tips.
Click through for the guide, and for a script Eitan has put together.
Comments closedJason Cockington digs into the two modes:
Over the last few months, I have received a number of very similar questions at either one of our Live Training courses or from a student attending one of our Ask Anything Power BI Q&A sessions. These questions all revolved around DirectQuery and were often specifically about performance issues or complexity of DAX calculations being written on the Power BI reports. This prompted me to write this post, as it became abundantly clear that most students were opting for DirectQuery when they should have been selecting Import. If you are not sure if DirectQuery is right for you, then read on, as we explore further.
Jason includes some Real Talk from Chris Webb, fairly eviscerating DirectQuery mode in the majority of cases.
Comments closed