Press "Enter" to skip to content

Day: March 21, 2025

Virtualizing Hadoop Data into OneLake via Apache Ozone

Published 2025-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

James Morantus hits us with a blast from the past:

Microsoft Fabric OneLake shortcuts facilitate the virtualization of data from various cloud object stores and on-premises environments. For on-premises sources like Cloudera/Apache Ozone, the OneLake S3 Compatible Shortcut can be utilized to connect to these data sources. With OneLake Shortcuts, users can create a virtual reference to their Cloudera cluster data without moving or duplicating the data. To learn more about Fabric OneLake shortcuts, reference this blog OneLake with shortcuts.

If this was a decade ago, I’d be a lot more excited. But it is kind of wild how quickly the data landscape changed, with the adoption of Spark over classic Hadoop; cloud-based data lakes over HDFS; and more focused dataset sizes over “give me everything.”

Leave a Comment

Integer Conversion and Rounding in SQL Server

Published 2025-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

Steve Jones points out a bit of rounding math:

Imagine that I have someone enter a value for the number of hours to include in a report. I enter 5 and the report divides this in half to go back 2.5 hours and forward 2.5 hours. I run this code at the top of my code block:

Click through for Steve’s example. This ultimately has to do with integer division. If you run the following code, you’ll still get 2 as the result:

SELECT CAST(5.99 / 2) AS INT;

This is because SQL Server discards the decimal during integer casting. DATEADD() simply works with the end result, post-cast.

Leave a Comment

Essential Settings for SSMS

Published 2025-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

Rich Benner has some thoughts on configuration:

By default, SSMS does not show row numbers next to your code. That’s not a huge issue when working with smaller blocks of T-SQL. However, when working with larger problems and/or collaborating with colleagues, being able to refer to a row number is invaluable. This is especially important for us here at SQL Solutions Group when we’re in meetings and looking at code. Being able to refer to a line number on somebody else’s screen makes the world so much easier and less confusing.

Line numbers being on should absolutely be a default setting in SSMS. I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want line numbers on. Rich also looks at other ways you can customize the look and feel of SSMS, such as map mode for the vertical scroll bar, organizing pinned tabs, and more.

Leave a Comment

String Data Types in MySQL and PostgreSQL

Published 2025-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

Aisha Bukar compares two products:

A very common task in creating a database is to store string data. For example, words, paragraph(s) or even documents. String data types allow you to do just that and store and represent text. They handle everything from simple names and addresses to complex data.

A string is simply a sequence of characters. These characters can be letters, numbers, symbols, or even spaces. For example, “Simple Talk”, “MySQL and PostgreSQL”, “1234” are all strings. Think of each character as a building block. A string is made up of these blocks, arranged in a specific order.

As always, when dealing with different data platform technologies, the small differences are big.

Leave a Comment

Thoughts on Dark Mode Reports in Power BI

Published 2025-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

Elena Drakulevska reminds us to think of the user:

Lately, there’s been a lot of hype around dark-mode reports—especially now that dark mode is officially a thing in Power BI. It’s sleek, it’s trendy, and, let’s be honest, it looks pretty cool.

But before we all jump on the dark-mode train, let’s pause for a second. Because, like most things in design, IT DEPENDS.

Click through for a primer on accessibility. Meanwhile, my hottest design take is that dark mode is wildly overrated. Invest in proper task lighting.

Leave a Comment