Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Tools

sqlcmd in SQL Server 2025 and Certificate Chain Not Trusted

Published 2025-05-27 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea points out a new thing to keep an eye on:

SQL Server 2025 provides ODBC sqlcmd version 17 which enforces an encrypted connection.

If you’re trying to use it to connect to instances that don’t have a CA-signed certificate or where TLS encryption was never properly configured, sqlcmd will throw the famous “certificate chain not trusted” error message:

Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server : SSL Provider: The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server : Client unable to establish connection.

The proper answer to this is to get trusted certificates. The workaround is what Vlad describes, so click through for that.

Leave a Comment

Managing SQL Agent Jobs with DBADash

Published 2025-05-15 by Kevin Feasel

David Wiseman shows off an open-source product:

For T-SQL Tuesday #186, Andy Levy asks, “How do you manage and/or monitor your SQL Server Agent jobs?”

This is a great opportunity for me to discuss how DBA Dash can help monitor SQL Agent jobs. DBA Dash is a free and open-source monitoring tool for SQL Server, created by me. It’s used to monitor thousands of SQL Server instances within Trimble alone, and it’s gaining popularity in the SQL Server community.

Read on to see how the product can help if you have a series of SQL Agent jobs.

Leave a Comment

Checking SQL Server for tempdb Performance Issues

Published 2025-05-09 by Kevin Feasel

Jeff Iannucci announces a new stored procedure:

Most database folks might know the tempdb database in SQL Server is used for temporary tables, but many folks don’t realize all the other things that use this critical system database.

It’s also used by table variables, cursors, aggregations, joins, and sorts. And by memory spills when you don’t have enough memory. And by integrity checks that you run regularly to check for corruption. And more.

Optimal performance of tempdb is vital, as it is involved constantly with all your database queries. So…is your tempdb configured and running optimally? And if it isn’t, can you tell why?

Click through to see how it works and where you can get a free copy.

Leave a Comment

An Overview of the Power BI Ecosystem

Published 2025-05-06 by Kevin Feasel

Kurt Buhler looks at tools:

In general, the process to build and manage both models and reports in Power BI can be simplified to a few sequential steps that describe the “lifecycle” of this content. You can see this depicted below, as well as some examples of the various tools that you might use to support each of these steps. Shameless plug, Bravo, Vertipaq Analyzer, and Analyze in Excel were created by SQLBI, and SQLBI is involved in the development of DAX Studio, DAX Optimizer, and Tabular Editor.

Click through for an interesting table showing what fits where. If all you’re using is Power BI Desktop, there’s a whole world of additional functionality you’re missing out on.

Comments closed

Debugging R Code in Visual Studio Code

Published 2025-05-05 by Kevin Feasel

Yohann Mansiaux steps through the code:

We are going to see how to use these functions in VSCode, as well as introducing “breakpoints”. Breakpoints are markers that you can set in your code to pause execution at a specific line. This allows you to inspect the state of your code at that point and step through it line by line. They are very close to the browser() function. They can also be used in RStudio IDE, but I have to admit that I never used them.

Read on to see how VSCode fills the need when it comes to debugging code. H/T R-Bloggers.

Comments closed

Darling Data Blocking Monitor App

Published 2025-05-05 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling announces a tool.

If you’ve given Erik money in the past (which I can confirm is an easy enough task). If you’ve used sp_WhoIsActive to write to a table, you’ve got an idea of how it will work. But this looks quite a bit easier than setting it all up yourself.

And the next time you run into Josh Darnell, say thank you.

Comments closed

The Power of Invoke-DbaQuery in dbatools

Published 2025-04-25 by Kevin Feasel

David Seis looks at a powerful cmdlet in dbatools:

In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Invoke-DbaQuery. I will test, review, and evaluate the script based on a series of identical steps. Our goal is to provide insights, warnings, and recommendations to help you use this script effectively and safely. Invoke-DbaQuery is the Swiss army knife of all dbatools commands as you can execute almost any T-SQL script you can think of via PowerShell.

Click through for an overview of what the cmdlet does, some tips on proper usage, and an important note around possible misuse.

Comments closed

Comparing Apache Iceberg to Delta Lake

Published 2025-04-18 by Kevin Feasel

Maria Zakourdaev compares technologies:

Public cloud blob storage has been a standard for data lakes for the last 10 years. Blob storage, at first, came to solve data warehouse storage limitations. It is very cheap and has unlimited capacity. You can store any data format (structured, semi-structured, or unstructured) in the data lake located on a blob storage, and keep any amount of raw data for an unlimited time. When considering Apache Iceberg vs Delta Lake, both can manage data efficiently. Depending on the access frequency, data can be stored on cold or warm types of cloud storage, saving even more costs.

Read on to see how the two techniques compare along several dimensions, as well as some general guidance at the end on which to choose.

Comments closed

Using the Microsoft Fabric SKU Estimator

Published 2025-04-18 by Kevin Feasel

Andreas Bergstedt shows off a new tool:

In today’s ever-changing analytics landscape it can be difficult to plan out your next project or your enterprise analytics roadmap.

Designed to optimize data infrastructure planning, the Microsoft Fabric SKU Estimator helps customers and partners to accurately estimate capacity requirements and select the most suitable SKU for their workloads, protecting users from under-provisioning and overcommitment.

Click through for a few scenarios of translating your existing warehousing and analytical systems into expected Microsoft Fabric needs.

Comments closed