A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Sebastian Sauer has a tutorial for us:
A residual is defined as
ri=yi−Xi^βri=yi−Xiβ^.
That is, a residual is a tangible thing in the sense that it describes observables (cf. Gelman 2021, chap. 11.3, p. 161). That is, the residuals are the difference between observed and predicted values.
Read on for the concept of error terms and how we might plot them.
Comments closedPaul Randal continues a series on the transaction log:
In the first part of this series, I introduced basic terminology around logging, so I recommend you read that before continuing with this post. Everything else I’ll cover in the series requires knowing some of the architecture of the transaction log, so that’s what I’m going to discuss this time. Even if you’re not going to follow the series, some of the concepts I’m going to explain below are worth knowing for everyday tasks DBAs handle in production.
Read on to learn more about some key transaction log terminology.
Comments closedI highlight a pair of useful extensions for Visual Studio Code:
The first tool of choice is a big one, Yu Zhang’s Markdown All in One. This extension provides several great features. One of my favorites is its support for creating a table of contents. After opening the Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P), select
Markdown All In One: Create Table of Contentsand it creates a ToC for you based on the heading markers you already have.
Read on for several more things I like about this tool, as well as a discussion of a second useful extension.
Comments closedRichard Swinbank fights Visual Studio:
I sometimes find working with Visual Studio’s projects a challenge in multi-developer environments, because each project type seems to have its own vulnerability to Git merge conflicts. In the case of SSAS tabular, I’ve found two issues to be a regular source of conflicts:
Click through to see what those two causes are and what you can do to reduce the risk of having either one burn you.
Comments closedMarco Russo and Alberto Ferrari are linguists:
When calculation groups were introduced in 2019, we did not have a way to describe them in a textual form. A calculation group was represented as a table with one visible column and one or more rows, one for each calculated item. Each calculation item could have one or two DAX expressions associated with it – one for the calculation item itself and an optional one for the format string. Describing a calculation group in an article often required the writer to include screenshots of the Tabular Editor user interface, plus comments in the sample code to explain where each DAX expression should be placed in the user interface.
From the start we proposed a syntax to describe an entire calculation group in a textual form. However, there was no tool able to convert that syntax into the actual object in the Tabular model. For this reason, in the initial version of the articles about calculation groups we used a “pseudo-syntax” and we included comments that made the code more verbose and not necessarily easier to read. However, Tabular Editor 3 introduced the full DAX script syntax for calculation groups that we had hoped would be available in 2019. We decided to adopt that syntax in our content. We use this article as a guide to introduce and explain the DAX Script syntax for calculation groups.
Go check it out.
Comments closedMarc Lelijveld continues a series on Power BI workspace configuration:
After Power BI Workspace setup – part 1, which was mainly about creating your workspace, giving it the right name etcetera, this blog will elaborate on workspace permissions. If you did not read part 1 yet, I encourage you to start at that blog to get the basic setup in place.
You might think, permissions is an easy topic, but often underestimated! In this blog I will describe the different workspace roles, and how you can apply them in your project. Also we will look at sharing specific content from a workspace perspective, such as sharing dataflows.
Read on to learn more.
Comments closedDavid Alcock shows us the button not to press:
A while ago I presented a session which covered transformation rules that are used by the query optimiser to produce our execution plans. I’m not feeling in the mood for relational algebra this morning so instead I’ll introduce a command that can cause mayhem on an instance SQL Server: DBCC RULEOFF.
DBCC RULEOFF is an undocumented command, that alone makes me want to use it but in order to cover one’s backside please don’t do any of the following in any environment apart from a disposable sandbox that only you use for weird and wonderful experiments in SQL Server, because we are going to break it…
Read on for something you can but should not do.
Comments closedReza Rad has the right price in mind:
A question I often get from many students is: “How can I practice Power BI service features if I do not have a Power BI Account?”. Not having a Power BI account can happen because of many scenarios; your company might close this option so that the process be only channeled through a specific process within the company. Or you may not have the permission to do so. Not having an account makes it difficult to practice Power BI Service options such as workspace, datasets, dashboards, dataflows, apps, and many other features. On the other hand, even if you have the Power BI Service account, in most of the organizations, you are not the service administrator, so you cannot practice tenant-settings configurations in the service.
Fortunately, there is a way to create your own Power BI sandbox; which means an environment just for yourself, with 25 accounts. You will be the administrator of your environment. The environment will be up for at least 90 days, and you can practice whatever you want for the Power BI service there. The best of all, it is FREE. You don’t have to pay a cent for it. Credit card detail is not needed. What better you could wish for?
Read on to see how.
Comments closedManvendra Sing takes a look at SQL Server’s vulnerability assessment tool:
I will explain how to use and perform security testing using SQL Server vulnerability assessment in this article. I have explained basic understanding about multiple layers of security that we configure to protect our SQL Server instances in my last article. I have also explained about security testing at each layer we should perform to understand how secure our systems are. I would request you to read this article, Understanding security testing for SQL Server environments to learn more about them.
Security is a very critical area for any database environment. Database security measures help an organization to protect its data to maintain its privacy and integrity. Security testing should be done regularly to ensure all security policies are properly configured to protect the systems.
SQL Server also offers various features using which we can perform security testing for our databases. One of such features is SQL Server vulnerability assessment. This feature scans the database for which you are running it and displays all weaknesses along with their probable solutions.
Read on to see how you can run a vulnerability assessment, the types of results you can get, and how you might detail with some common issues.
Comments closedMala Mahadevan continues a series on ScriptDOM:
In the last post I wrote about what ScriptDOM is and why it is useful. From this post, I will explain how it can be put to use. What it does when you pass a script to it is to parse it, check if it is free of syntax errors, and build what is called an ‘Abstract Syntax Tree’, which is a programmatic representation of the script, with nodes and branches for each code element. The rest of the usage/functionality is built around the Abstract Syntax Tree. So in this post let us look into how this is accomplished.
Read on to see what you need to do.
Comments closed