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Category: Azure Data Studio

Database Snapshot Creator in Azure Data Studio

Haroon Ashraf takes a look at an extension in Azure Data Studio:

This article talks about the steps required to add and use the DB Snapshot Creator extension in Azure Data Studio.

Additionally, the readers are going to get a conceptual understanding of database snapshots and their use in professional life scenarios. This article highlights the importance of preserving database structure for future reference.

Let us get familiar with the extension prior to its use.

Click through to learn more. The one thing I’d like to see clarified (if it’s not already and I just missed it) is that you really don’t want more than one database snapshot on a given database at any time. Having two or more database snapshots active on a database can cause fairly significant performance issues on non-trivial databases and I’d prefer to see the tool include that knowledge rather than remembering an eight-year-old article from Jonathan Kehayias. But hey, I guess that’s what I’m here for…

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Working on Multiple Repos with Azure Data Studio

Deborah Melkin shows off a feature of Azure Data Studio:

If you read my T-SQL Tuesday post from this month, I mentioned that I’ve been using Azure Data Studio on daily basis. One of the things that I find I use it for the most is for Source Control with Git. I’m incredibly surprised by this. Maybe it comes from years of using Management Studio and not being able to check in code from the tool that I’m using to write it. (Or maybe I’ve been able to do that all this time and no one told me…?)

As I’m using it, I found two things that have helped me out. So naturally, I thought I’d share.

Click through for information on how to use multiple repos, as well as a bonus item.

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Lessons from using Notebooks

Glenn Berry takes us through some of the past (and sometimes present) challenges of running notebooks in Azure Data Studio:

I have to admit that I do not use Jupyter notebooks or Azure Data Studio (ADS) everyday. Last August, I made separate Jupyter notebook versions of my SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries. There was a separate version for SQL Server 2012 through SQL Server 2019, along with one for Azure SQL Database. This was after a number of requests from people in the community.

Creating these notebooks was a pretty decent amount of work. Luckily, this was right around the time that Azure Data Studio was making it much easier to edit and format markdown for the text blocks. Since then, Azure Data Studio is even easier to use for editing and formatting. Even more fortuitous was the fact that Julie Koesmarno (@MsSQLGirl) volunteered to greatly improve my formatting!

Unfortunately, there has not been as much interest in my Jupyter notebooks as I hoped for. There are probably a number of reasons for this.

Read on for Glenn’s notes.

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Auto-Generating Relative Links in Azure Data Studio Notebooks

Julie Koesmarno points out a new feature:

As you enrich your collection of notebooks (organized in a Jupyter Book, hopefully), you will likely want to link from one notebook to another notebook in the directory you are working on.

If you are familiar with markdown, you know that this process can be painful as you’d need to know where the target link is located and where it is located in relation to the notebook that you want to link from.

Luckily in Azure Data Studio v1.27.0, there is a new Insert Link button in the Text Cell that does the automatic translation “hard coded path” to “relative path” link. Check this out!

Click through for a demo. I like the idea as a way of preventing a common problem when sending artifacts somewhere: all of those hard-coded links to a network share I can’t access or a folder on somebody else’s laptop.

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No Respect for NOCOUNT

Thomas LaRock notes an oddity in SQL Server Management Studio and Azure Data Studio:

Anyway, I spend time trying to debug what is happening. I am able to manually set NOCOUNT on and off inside of T-SQL and see a count of rows affected returned (or not). I check and recheck everything I can think of and feel as if I have lost my mind. I’m starting to question how I ever became certified in SQL Server.

I mean, it’s a simple configuration change. This isn’t rocket surgery.

So I do what anyone else in this situation would do.

I turn off my laptop and forget about everything for a few days.

I’d never used this particular style of setting NOCOUNT on for a user (I would always enable it by session using SET NOCOUNT ON), so I’m not sure when certain tools started ignoring the user-level setting, but read the whole thing for maximum intrigue.

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Executing Parameterized Notebooks via Azure Data Studio

Julie Koesmarno takes us through three methods for executing parameterized notebooks in Azure Data Studio:

In Feb 2021 release, Azure Data Studio (v1.26.1) has added parameterized URI execution. See the “Preview of passing parameters through URI” section and the Parameterization of Notebooks in Azure Data Studio on Microsoft Docs.

So, in total there are three ways of executing parameterized notebook (from another notebook). Check out the demo files here:

Click through for the notebooks.

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Tips and Tricks for VS Code and Azure Data Studio

Steve Jones shares some advice:

I really like Visual Studio Code. The more I use it, the more I get comfortable in it, and the more I appreciate the design and flow of using the editor. I didn’t feel that way early on, preferring the comfort of Visual Studio, but now I most often use VS Code.

The other day I saw an article from one of the PMs for the product, with a number of tips and tricks. I like some of these, and have already found a few to be handy in my work. 

Click through for more info. Switching to a new IDE can be challenging, but searching out tips and tricks like this can smooth out the transition period bumpiness and potentially unlock efficiencies you wouldn’t even have known about.

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Comparing SSMS and Azure Data Studio

Deborah Melkin contrasts SQL Server Management Studio with Azure Data Studio:

Honestly, the vast majority of my time is split between Management Studio (SSMS) or Azure Data Studio. I’m pretty simple\straightforward this way. I started playing a lot more with Azure Data Studio over the past year, but I find I’m not able to make the switch to using it full time. It really depends on the task that I need to do.

So what tasks do I do often and which tool do I use?

The plus side for Azure Data Studio is that it’s far enough along that some of these choices are difficult to make. The minus side is that it’s still often on the losing end. I’d expect that shift to continue over the next couple of years as the product matures and becomes a good product for database developers.

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