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Category: Cloud

Automated Alerts for Query Store Usage in Azure SQL DB

Published 2023-11-03 by Kevin Feasel

Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz doesn’t want to run out of disk space:

In this article, we will introduce a PowerShell script that helps monitor the usage of Query Data Store (QDS) in SQL Server databases. The script automatically sends an email alert when the storage space used by the Query Data Store reaches or exceeds 80% of its maximum allocated space. This can be particularly useful for database administrators to proactively manage and optimize their database storage.

Before we dive into the details, it’s essential to note that the script provided is a recommendation and should be adapted according to your specific environment and requirements. The responsibility of ensuring its compatibility and the impact on your system lies solely with the user.

Click through for the script. A quick glance of the code makes me think it will also work with on-premises SQL Server.

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Moving VMs and Disks between Azure Tenants

Published 2023-11-02 by Kevin Feasel

Dennes Torres makes a move:

Move objects on Azure is not simple. Move between Tenants is extremely difficult or not possible. I faced the challenge to move a virtual machine and disks between tenants recently and found the solution.

Some Years ago, I wrote an article about the Azure Resource Mover when it was still being created. Today the resource mover is integrated with the entire azure portal, although there are already many limitations in relation to moving resources. Anyway, this will not affect us on this blog post.

Click through for the step-by-step, as well as a few gotchas you might run into along the way.

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Transaction Isolation Level Changes in Azure SQL MI

Published 2023-10-31 by Kevin Feasel

Emre Gokoglu goes through a customer issue:

In this technical article, we will delve into an interesting case where a customer encountered problems related to isolation levels in Azure SQL Managed Instance. Isolation levels play a crucial role in managing the concurrency of database transactions and ensuring data consistency. We will start by explaining isolation levels and providing examples of their usage. Then, we will summarize and describe the customer’s problem in detail. Finally, we will go through the analysis of the issue.

This post describes an interesting difference between on-premises SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance in terms of how they handle wrapping multiple connections in a single transaction scope. It’s also the type of thing I would not have thought of when testing a cloud solution like Azure SQL MI or Azure SQL DB versus on-premises SQL Server.

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Loading Data from Sharepoint Lists into Microsoft Fabric

Published 2023-10-31 by Kevin Feasel

Stepan Resl loads some data:

In a time of Fabric, it’s worth pointing out our three options for data ingestion.

  • Data Pipelines with Copy Activity
  • Dataflows Gen 2
  • Notebooks

We must compare them to understand ​​what each can offer us from different perspectives. To be able to compare them thoroughly, there are some guardrails that we need to set so that everything goes the same way.

My biggest takeaway from this is, don’t load important business data into Sharepoint Lists to begin with.

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ApplicationContext Updates for Power BI

Published 2023-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Chris Webb shares an update with us:

If you’re a fan of using Log Analytics for monitoring Power BI activity, then you may have noticed there’s some new data in the ApplicationContext column of the PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace table. Up until recently the ApplicationContext column only contained IDs that identify the report and the visual that generated a DAX query (something I blogged about here); it now contains additional information on the type of Power BI report that generated the query and an ID for the user session.

This is quite useful for seeing not just that people are using your Power BI services, but also who and what they are using to consume the information. Though do beware Chris’s warning about consumption method before you get too excited.

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Ensure Azure Backup Retention Periods via Azure Policy

Published 2023-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Sabrin Alsahsah keeps backups around:

In this blog article, we will cover how to prevent and deny the automated backup retention days for Azure SQL database to be lower than X number of days.

We have received some service requests from customers that would like to ensure that they have for example 14 days as a retention period for their automated backup and would like to do this using a custom policy since they have multiple databases.

You can follow the steps below to create a custom policy and ensure this:

Click through for that process.

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Working with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure from Python

Published 2023-10-26 by Kevin Feasel

Brendan Tierney peruses an SDK:

Having set up your Oracle Cloud account and perhaps initiated some services, such as an Autonomous Database or an AI Service, you have some options with how you’ll interact with those services. The first is to use the online interfaces and tools for them. Another is to access these OCI services from your local PC or laptop. This latter method gives you greater flexibility for accessing these services, automating various tasks and building out some applications. This post will step through how to install the necessary Python library, how to configure for connecting to OCI and will demo some of the simpler APIs for accessing the OCI services. This will help you verify your connection is working correctly.

Click through for the details.

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Cross-Environment Schema Comparison for ADF

Published 2023-10-25 by Kevin Feasel

Teo Lachev has a script for us:

So, I got on a quest to find an ADF schema comparison tool for a quick and dirty way to identify ADF code discrepancies between two environments and promote changes manually. Ideally, the tool would be something like SQL Server Database projects in Visual Studio.

Read on to see what Teo was able to find, as well as a few code changes around it.

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Comparing Service Endpoints and Private Endpoints in Azure

Published 2023-10-25 by Kevin Feasel

Khushbu Gandhi clarifies a choice:

For a long time, if you were using the multi-tenant, PaaS version on many Azure services, then you had to access them over the internet with no way to restrict access just to your resources. This restriction was primarily down to the complexity of doing this sort of restrictions with a multi-tenant service. At that time, the only way to get this sort of restriction was to look at using single-tenant solutions like App Service Environment or running service yourself in a VM instead of using PaaS.

This public access was a concern for many, and so Microsoft implemented new services that allow you to limit access to these multi-tenant services. Today, we have two solutions that on the face of it look quite similar, Service Endpoints and Private link/Endpoints. These two services are both designed to allow you to restrict who connects to your service, and how they do it. Because of this, it can be confusing to know which service to use and what the benefits are. In this article, we will look at these services and try to make your decision clearer.

Read on to see what the differences are between the two, as well as a comparison table and recommendations on which to choose in what circumstances.

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