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Category: Versions

Installing mssql-cli on Ubuntu 22.04

Published 2022-05-18 by Kevin Feasel

Andrew Pruski runs into a problem:

I really like the mssql-cli tool. I use it pretty much everyday however it seems like it’s not being maintained anymore and as such, there are issues when trying to install it on Ubuntu 22.04.

The issue with Ubuntu 22.04 is that it has python 3.10 installed by default which the current mssql-cli is not compatible with. I did try installing previous versions of python (3.8 and 3.9) but had no luck so kept the default version.

Click through to see what Andrew did to resolve the problem. It looks like there’s already a GitHub issue for this that was opened back in October.

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Flink 1.15 Released

Published 2022-05-05 by Kevin Feasel

Joe Moser and Yun Gao announce Apache Flink 1.15:

Thanks to our well-organized and open community, Apache Flink continues to grow as a technology and remain one of the most active projects in the Apache community. With the release of Flink 1.15, we are proud to announce a number of exciting changes.

One of the main concepts that makes Apache Flink stand out is the unification of batch (aka bounded) and stream (aka unbounded) data processing, which helps reduce the complexity of development. A lot of effort went into this unification in the previous releases, and you can expect more efforts in this direction.

Apache Flink is not only growing when it comes to contributions and users, but also out of the original use cases. We are seeing a trend towards more business/analytics use cases implemented in low-/no-code. Flink SQL is the feature in the Flink ecosystem that enables such uses cases and this is why its popularity continues to grow.

Flink SQL is Feasel’s Law in action.

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Comparing R Package Versions with Diffify

Published 2022-05-02 by Kevin Feasel

Clarissa Barratt and Parisa Gregg announce an interesting tool:

You know that sinking feeling that you get when you’re months into a big project and you log in one day and nothing works? Turns out something has updated and things have been removed that you needed and now you need to spend hours-days figuring out what’s changed and your masters deadline is getting closer and … ok, apparently this took me back to a very specific event.

But I’m sure most of that sounds familiar to you if you’ve ever programmed something over a longer period of time.

Over the last few months, Jumping Rivers have been working on a tool that will make it easier to see differences between R package versions: Diffify.

Read on to see it in action. It looks quite useful for troubleshooting issues in which a package suddenly changed API functionality, something which tends to happen frequently in the R and Python worlds.

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Azure Data Studio April 2022 Updates

Published 2022-04-22 by Kevin Feasel

Timi Oshin has some release notes for us:

We are excited to announce the general availability of the Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio. Among many other capabilities, this extension can be used for migrating SQL Server databases to Azure for an enhanced user experience. With this extension, users can get right-sized Azure recommendations based on performance data collected from your source SQL Server databases to optimize for cost and scale. The migration experience is powered by the Azure Database Migration Service which provides a scalable, resilient, and secure way to meet the needs of your organization. See below for a snapshot UI of this extension.

Click through for more notes on Azure SQL migration, the table designer, and more.

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Error Calling SQLSetDescRec via PolyBase

Published 2022-04-01 by Kevin Feasel

Nathan Schoenack troubleshoots an error:

When trying to query an external table created for a generic ODBC external data source, the following error can be observed:

Message 7320, level 16, state 110, line 87

Unable to execute query “Remote Query” against OLE DB provider “MSOLEDBSQL” on link server “(null)”. 105082; Generic ODBC error: OdbcBufferReader.ReadBuffer, error in OdbcReadBuffer: SqlState: IM001, NativeError: 0, ‘Error calling: SQLSetDescRec(this->GetHdesc(), (SQLSMALLINT)column->idxServerCol, (SQLSMALLINT)column->odbcReadType, 0, column->valueLength, (SQLSMALLINT)column->precision, (SQLSMALLINT)column->scale, (SQLPOINTER)(pBuffer + column->valueOffset), (SQLLEN *)indPtr, (SQLLEN *)indPtr), SQL return code: -1 | SQL Error Info: Error <1>: ErrorMsg: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] The driver does not support this function. | Error calling: pReadConn->ReadBuffer(pBuffer, bufferOffset, bufferLength, pBytesRead, pRowsRead) | state: FFFF, number: 239, active connections: 9’, Connection String: Dsn={DSN Name};Driver={Driver Name};uid=root;server=xxxxx;port=xxxx;database=xxxx.

Read on for a viable workaround.

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Managed Instance Link in Preview

Published 2022-03-18 by Kevin Feasel

Dani Ljepava announces support for Managed Instance link is now in public preview:

As of today, we are pleased to announce that the link feature for Managed Instance is available in the open public preview, in all Azure regions worldwide. It can be used with existing, or new managed instances, and SQL Server 2019 Enterprise, or Developer edition, including SQL Server 2022 CTP (available through EAP). We have also released the tooling support for the link in the form of automated wizards available in SQL Server Management Studio, starting from SSMS v18.11.1.

With the link, replicated databases from SQL Server on Managed Instance are usable as R/O secondary replicas. While the link is in operation, transactions commited on SQL Server (primary) are instantaneously committed to Managed Instance (secondary). This provides an exact replica of your SQL Server database on Managed Instance, synced near real-time. The link was built to be resilient, in case of the network being down, SQL Server being rebooted, or maintained, or in case of some other issue, the link will automatically resume replicating where it has left off when the issue has been resolved.

Support for 2019 is a shrewd idea, given the SQL Server version adoption curve for companies. This isn’t going to replace having a proper availability group for high availability or even (most) disaster recovery options, though, because the link is currently one-way—though Dani does mention eventual support for bi-directional operation with SQL Server 2022.

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SQLBits Keynote Notes

Published 2022-03-10 by Kevin Feasel

Brent Ozar shares some thoughts from the first day’s keynote from SQLBits:

Pedro Lopes took the stage to talk about parameter-sensitive plan optimization, aka PSP Optimization. He demoed it with SQL Server 2022 CTP 1.3. I’ve written about this feature before, and there wasn’t anything new here in the demos. My opinion on this feature remains the same: I think it sounds like a phenomenal down payment. It won’t fix parameter sniffing, but I don’t think it’s going to backfire.

Read on for Brent’s thoughts around what Microsoft is doing for SQL Server 2022.

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Thoughts on the Long Run: PolyBase

Published 2022-03-01 by Kevin Feasel

I have some thoughts on a recent announcement:

We could see the writing on the wall here ever since Cloudera and Hortonworks merged. Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop (CDH) and Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) were both on-premises offerings that you could also get in the cloud. Post-merger, Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) was cloud-only and, to my knowledge, they have never released an on-premises version. Cloud versus on-premises isn’t itself the issue but it does tie in with the issue: in order for PolyBase to work, certain ports need to be exposed on your Hadoop cluster. Cloud offerings tend not to want to expose a bunch of ports to internal services and so PolyBase to CDP was a non-starter.

It’s about 30% bad news, 50% good news, and 20% meh news. Click through for the longer-form version of that.

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