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Author: Kevin Feasel

OneDrive and Disappearing Powershell Modules

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Robert Cain diagnoses a weird issue:

I was having a weird problem with PowerShell, while working on my ArcaneBooks project. I would install a module, and it would work fine at first. I could see the module when I used Get-Module -ListAvailable, and use it.

The problem occurred when I closed the terminal (whether the Windows Terminal or in VSCode), then reopened it. The module had vanished! It was no longer there, I would get an error if I tried to import it, and Get-Module -ListAvailable would no longer show it. I could reinstall, it’d be there, but again when I closed the terminal and reopened it would be gone.

Read on to learn what OneDrive was doing and how Robert at least got it to stop doing that.

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Building a Unit Chart

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Elizabeth Ricks describes a type of visual:

Unlike other charts that use line length, position on an axis, or area to represent values, unit charts are made up of individual markers—geometric shapes, icons, images, etc—that encode quantities based on how many of that unit are shown. Examples of unit charts are ISOTYPE charts, square area charts (also known as waffle charts), symbol charts, and pictorial charts. They are commonly used in media, advertisements, and infographics. 

Click through for some good use cases for unit charts.

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The Problem with Stacked Bar Graphs

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Rita Fainshtein looks at a stacked bar graph:

Let’s look at what motivated our choice and whether it is indeed a graph that will convey accurate messages to those who read it.

Here are some reasons why this type of visualization is preferred:

1. The graph on the right is one of the “recommended” graphs provided by tools (both Excel and Power bi).

2. It seems logical: there is a height comparison between case managers, clear separation between client types and the graph looks colorful and appealing.

But behind this, there are some major problems with the visual. Read on to learn what those are and for one alternative visual which can be better.

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.NET Framework Versions and ADO Pipeline Builds

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Olivier Van Steenlandt runs into a versioning issue:

The error message I received during the build process in my Azure DevOps YAML Pipeline was :

##[error]C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(1229,5): Error MSB3644: The reference assemblies for .NETFramework,Version=v4.5 were not found. To resolve this, install the Developer Pack (SDK/Targeting Pack) for this framework version or retarget your application. You can download .NET Framework Developer Packs at https://aka.ms/msbuild/developerpacks

I wasn’t sure how to solve this issue, and when I was using my on-premise Agent Pool, the Database Project was able to build successfully.

Click through for the solution

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Managed Identities and Invoking REST Endpoints from Azure SQL DB

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Imke Feldmann executes a Power BI REST endpoint call from Azure SQL Database:

For Azure SQL Databases there is a very cool new preview feature: “sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint “. This function allows you to call certain Microsoft API endpoints directly from within your Azure database and write that data back into a table for example.

With that, you can for example create a stored procedure that can be triggered from Power Automate. This is ideal for larger datasets that would require long and slow “apply-to-each” rounds or cumbersome bulk-upload-workarounds.

I was struggling with the authentication when using a system assigned managed identity (“service principal”). Thanks to Davide Mauri for telling me how to fill in the parameters for the DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIALS to make this work for Power BI:

Click through to see that answer, as well as a demonstration of the entire process.

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What-If Operations in Powershell

Published 2023-03-28 by Kevin Feasel

Chad Callihan looks at one of my favorite features in Powershell:

We’ve all had moments of instant regret. Maybe it was missing that WHERE clause when executing a SQL statement or seeing something like “500 rows affected” when expecting only 1. These are sinking feelings we never want to experience again.

To avoid that pain, SQL Server has BEGIN/ROLLBACK/COMMIT that you can use to help check your work. Did you know PowerShell also has a helpful switch called WhatIf to preview changes before they’re applied?

This does take a bit of effort to implement in your custom modules, but the fact that the language has this concept explicitly laid out is a smart idea.

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Troubleshooting and Fixing Grafana Performance Problems

Published 2023-03-27 by Kevin Feasel

Cameron Kerr tracks down dashboard problems:

Is your Prometheus performance causing your Grafana experience to suffer? Could you explain which of your tens of Grafana dashboards or users are causing performance problems in Prometheus? Let me show you how we unlocked insight into the performance of Grafana and Prometheus, allowing us to answer import service management questions such as:

  • Which dashboards are actually being used?
  • Who is actually using the dashboards?
  • Who has been issuing poorly-performing queries?
  • And which dashboard activity is causing my Prometheus instance(s) to perform poorly?
  • Is it slow because someone has a dashboard showing a year’s worth of data that auto-refreshes every 30 seconds?

Click through for a thorough article on finding performance bottlenecks in a platform which typically helps you find performance bottlenecks in other platforms.

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(Possible) Shifts in Zero Downtime Mentality

Published 2023-03-27 by Kevin Feasel

Steve Jones notices a trend:

The last year, however, has had more people looking to implement database DevOps and speed up their development, but not a lot of questions or demands for zero downtime during these deployments. I find that interesting as the world depends more and more on computer systems, and the customer base for many organizations may demand access to the systems at any hour of the day or night.

However, it doesn’t seem that as many people are concerned about small moments of downtime.

My ego would like to tell people that it’s probably because everybody read my post about how zero downtime isn’t really a thing.

Ego aside, it is pretty interesting that Steve’s not finding as much push for minimal downtime. Steve does include a few conjectures as to why it may be so.

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Troubleshooting HADR_SYNC_COMMIT Waits

Published 2023-03-27 by Kevin Feasel

Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz reviews a wait stat:

Today, I worked on a service request that our customer faced a performance issue in their business critical service tier database. Their main suspect was that the syncronization with the secondary replica has a delay. 

During their troubleshooting process they found that they got many request with the wait type is HADR_SYNC_COMMIT.

Read on to learn more about this wait, including what can cause it. There’s also a bit of information about it in the SQLskills wait state compendium.

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