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Author: Kevin Feasel

Variable Typing in Python

Published 2022-02-22 by Kevin Feasel

Adrian Tam notes that Python is for the birds:

Python is a duck typing language. It means the data types of variables can change as long as the syntax is compatible. Python is also a dynamic programming language. Meaning we can change the program while it runs, including defining new functions and the scope of name resolution. Not only these give us a new paradigm in writing Python code, but also a new set of tools for debugging. In the following, we will see what we can do in Python that cannot be done in many other languages. After finishing this tutorial you will know

– How Python manages the variables you defined

– How Python code uses a variable and why we don’t need to define its type like C or Java

Read on to learn how.

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Methods to Export Azure SQL Database

Published 2022-02-22 by Kevin Feasel

Abhishek Shaha and Ahmed Mahmoud enumerate techniques to export an Azure SQL Database:

Export Azure SQL Database is a common request for Azure SQL DB customers, in this article we are going to list down some advanced scenarios, on how this can be achievable through various tools not limited to Azure Portal, Azure CLI and PowerShell. In addition, this article will provide alternative methods when it comes to private endpoints and deny public access.

Click through for several options.

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Scripting and Automating Power BI Backups

Published 2022-02-22 by Kevin Feasel

Marc Lelijveld backs that thing up:

Basically for every data model, but in particular for large and enterprise-grade data models, it might be wishful to perform backups. Power BI Premium offers a way to perform backup and restore operations for Power BI datasets. This feature, coming from Azure Analysis Services, helps you to take a backup of your dataset logic as well as the data itself and the ability to restore in case your dataset gets corrupted or backend processes have failed. Furthermore, this backup and restore process is also a way to migrate your datasets from Analysis Services to Power BI Premium.

In this blog, I describe what is needed for Power BI backup operations, how you can perform them and how to script / automate them.

Read on for the process.

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SQL Server’s Central Management Server

Published 2022-02-22 by Kevin Feasel

Lee Markup builds a SQL Server inventory:

Today, we will be looking at using T-SQL and a Central Management Server to create a SQL Server inventory. Let’s say that you’re  new at this company or in this role and all you have right now is the list of SQL Servers that people know about. you haven’t been able to run the MAP Toolkit or maybe you’ve been told that you can’t run it for some reason. the list of SQL Servers that people “just know about” probably isn’t anywhere near complete, but you have to start somewhere.

These things are a life-saver, especially once you have more than a couple of instances to worry about.

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Learning about Locks in SQL Server

Published 2022-02-22 by Kevin Feasel

Bob Dorr migrates over a couple of posts on locking. The first one describes lock enumeration:

SQL Server has a lock iterator class which is used by Lock Monitor (deadlock detection), DMVs such as dm_tran_locks and other workers.   The iterator is designed to remain lock free whenever possible to avoid contention with active queries.  To accomplish this the iterator uses a marker (bookmark) approach and the lock type of NL.  The NL lock does not block and provides a bookmark (reference count and location) supporting the iterator.

The other post covers lock partitioning:

Shared access blocks exclusive acquire requests. The shared access needs only to acquire on the worker’s local partition. An attempt to acquire exclusive access is blocked by the shared access holders. Conversely to acquire exclusive access the worker must acquire the exclusive access of every partition. The exclusive acquisition path is longer than the shared path because N partitions must be acquired to achieve the exclusive access. Increasing the number of partitions increases the work required to acquire exclusive access. This means that only certain protection paths should use the partitioning approach.

Both get pretty deep into internals.

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Getting Started with the Databricks Feature Store

Published 2022-02-21 by Kevin Feasel

Gavita Regunath gives us an introduction to a useful Databricks feature:

Databricks announced the launch of the Databricks Feature Store last year, in May 2021. It is the first of its kind that has been co-designed with Delta Lake and MLflow to accelerate ML deployments.

In this article, we will leverage Databricks Feature Store to store features, create a training dataset by looking up relevant features, and subsequently train an ML model. Follow this step-by-step guide to get started on Databricks Feature Store.

Click through to learn more.

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Storage Pools and Volumes

Published 2022-02-21 by Kevin Feasel

John Morehouse illuminates us on storage:

I think there are a couple of lines of thought related to this.  I’m one person with a NAS so I don’t need multiple volumes.  I can certainly get by with a single volume on each storage pool and this will simplify management of things.

If you were working with enterprise grade storage in a corporate environment, having multiple volumes will make sense.  I think of this as carving up disk space for production SQL Servers where each drive letter corresponds to a given volume which resides on a given storage pool.  A volume can serve multiple folders.

You know a blog post is going to be good when it starts with “In hindsight, I should have done this differently.”

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