A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Gilbert Quevauvilliers wraps up a series on Power BI performance load testing:
This is the final part of my blog series for Power BI Performance testing, where I will finally run the Power BI Performance Load testing using Visual Studio Code.
In this blog post I will show you how I set up the test, run the test and view the outputs from the performance testing.
Read on for that, as well as links to the prior posts if you’re missing them.
Comments closedAndy Yun has a new demo database:
Today, I have the honor and pleasure of debuting a new presentation for MSSQLTips: A Practical Introduction to Vector Search in SQL Server 2025 (you can watch the recording here too). To accompany that new presentation, I opted to create a new demo database instead of retrofitting one of my existing demo databases. And I’m sharing it with you so you don’t have to go through the headache of taking an existing database and creating vector embeddings.
Click through for Andy’s demo database, which is approximately 16 GB in size, so not a tiny one.
Comments closedJared Poche generates some test data:
I’ve already posted a blog on page latch waits and some of the ways to minimize them, but I wanted to add some more on the issue. I wanted to test out some strategies to see how effective they are.
Setting up tests can be very difficult in some cases, and this attempt encountered a very unusual problem. At the risk of delaying the intended results, I wanted to point this out. It’s both interesting and frustrating to work with SQL Server for 20 years and run into new problems.
Read on to see what Jared tried, some interesting consequences, and a small fix that enabled a big problem.
Comments closedGilbert Quevauvilliers continues a series on Power BI performance load testing:
I am going to be using Visual Studio Code to edit the PBIReport.JSON.
It is free to download and use, it works on any device.
And most importantly it will also show you errors in the JSON file. This can help when there are potential issues.
For the test I will be putting in the following details below into the PBIReport.JSON
Click through for the process, which is fairly complex all things considered.
Comments closedGilbert Quevauvilliers finds some UUIDs:
When completing the Power BI performance load testing, you will need to get details from your Power BI report and App Workspace, which will later be used in the PBIReport.JSON file.
In this blog post I will show you how to find those details, so that when it comes time to add it to the PBIReport.JSON file, it will be easy to plug the values in.
The reason for a separate blog post is because you will have to find the GUIDs that are used, which takes a bit of time and knowledge to find the correct GUID for the right value.
Click through for the most unsatisfying Easter egg hunt you could imagine. Gilbert then continues to pull out slider and filter data values.
Comments closedMiles Cole makes an announcement:
I’m excited to formally announce LakeBench, now in version v0.3, the first Python-based multi-modal benchmarking library that supports multiple data processing engines on multiple benchmarks. You can find it on GitHub and PyPi.
Traditional benchmarks like TPC-DS and TPC-H focus heavily on analytical queries, but they miss the reality of modern data engineering: building complex ELT pipelines. LakeBench bridges this gap by introducing novel benchmarks that measure not just query performance, but also data loading, transformation, incremental processing, and maintenance operations. The first of such benchmarks is called ELTBench and is initially available in
lightmode.
Click through to see how it works and grab a copy if you’re interested.
Comments closedGilbert Quevauvilliers runs some tests:
It is becoming increasingly important to understand how the Power BI reports/Semantic Model that are being used in your organization are performing.
When using Fabric Capacities this can potentially be of critical importance, because a single report that is not well designed could cripple or bring down your capacity.
By completing Power BI Performance load testing before it goes into a production environment allows for scalable, dependable, repeatable testing to take place in lower environments.
Read on to see what this entails and the tool Gilbert will use throughout this series.
Comments closedAdam Bertram runs out of time:
Have you ever had a Pester test hang indefinitely, blocking your entire test suite? Maybe it’s waiting for a network response that never comes, or stuck in an infinite loop. Without proper timeout handling, one bad test can ruin your entire CI/CD pipeline.
In this article, you’ll learn how to implement robust timeout handling for Pester tests using PowerShell runspaces, ensuring your test suite always completes in a predictable timeframe.
Click through for the code and explanation.
Comments closedThe performance impact of pg_tde by Percona for encrypted data pages is measurable across all tests, but not very large. The performance impact of encrypting WAL pages is about 20% for write-heavy tests. The tests were run with an extension RC (Release Candidate), however the WAL encryption feature is still in Beta stage.
Andreas also has a post on the testing specifics:
Comments closedThis test was run on a dedicated physical server, to avoid external influences and fluctuations from virtualization.
The server has a Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5412U CPU with 48 cores, 256 GB RAM, and a 2 TB SAMSUNG MZQL21T9HCJR NVram disk dedicated for the tests (OS was running on a different disk).
Arthur Breant runs some tests:
You’ve created a fantastic mockup and your client is delighted. You’re ready to move to production with your application. But one question haunts you: how can you ensure that your application will remain stable and functional through modifications and evolutions?
The answer comes down to one word: testing.
Read on to learn how you can perform unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing of Shiny applications in R. H/T R-Bloggers.
Comments closed