A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Brian Kelley found a great Wifi spot:
I’m at a conference, specifically a security conference. So I looked at the available WiFi connections. Among the conference and hotel specific connections and the MiFi and cellphone uplinks I spotted this one
My little Wifi hotspot has an SSID of Flowers By Irene.
Comments closedDevin Knight shows us how to use the Enlighten Aquarium Power BI custom visual:
In this module you will learn how to use the Enlighten Aquarium Power BI Custom Visual. While it might not be the most practical visualization it does provide a fun way to show categorical data and can have multiple series shown as well.
From now on, all dashboards must look like screensavers from the 1990s.
Comments closedMichael J. Swart is hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday:
SQL Server 2016 went RTM this week and so naturally, we’re going to write about it. Here are a few writing prompts for you:
Check out what’s new. Microsoft has written a lot about their new features. Thomas Larock has written a really nice landing page for those posts, SQL Server 2016: It Just Runs Faster – Thomas Larock. Look through those links. Do you feel optimistic about 2016? Or maybe a bit disappointed? Let us know either way
Haven’t had time to download the bits, install them, explore and form thoughts on 2016 yet? Have no fear, check out Microsoft’s Virtual Labs. It lets you explore features without worrying about all the setup. In minutes you’ll be typing
SELECT 'hello world';
Get writing!
Comments closedSlava Murygin has notes on licensing SQL Server 2016:
– Two Major Licensed Editions: Enterprise and Standard;
– Enterprise Edition can be licensed only “By Core”. Standard also available on “Server+CAL*” basis;
– If you have SA** you can still use your old CAL licenses with SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Edition, but will be limited by usage of only 20 Cores on your server;
– Standard Edition is limited by 4 Sockets/16 Cores and 128 Gb of Memory;
Licensing is boring, painful, and ultimately necessary to understand.
Comments closedKevin Hill looks at Stretch database:
Lowest performance rate is $1.25/hr or just under $1K/mo. Only goes up from there
“Stretch Database currently does not support stretching to another SQL Server. ” Azure only
Lame/minimal filters…you have to roll your own functions, and they must be deterministic…no “Getdate() – 30”. This GUI is only slightly better than the horrible nightmare that was Notification Services…
I see the negatives overwhelming the positives at this point. You also can’t modify schema while Stretch is active.
Comments closedCarlos L. Chacon was nice enough to interview me on his podcast:
The expansion of data sets and increased expectations of businesses for analysis and modeling of data has led developers to create a number of database products to meet those needs. As data professionals, it is incumbent upon us to understand how these tools work and put them to their best use–before somebody else puts them to sub-optimal use. I am joined by Kevin Feasel who walks us through some of the technologies available and sorts out under what circumstances we want to consider using each one.
Show notes are on the SQL Data Partners podcast site. My presentation slides are available online. And if I get just a few more people to dig Aphyr as much as I do, the world will be a better place.
Comments closedIn SQL Server 2016, Distributed Transactions are only supported if the transaction is distributed across multiple instances of SQL Server. It is NOT supported if the transaction is distributed between different databases within the same instance of SQL Server. So in the picture above, if the databases are on separate SQL instances it will work, but not if the databases reside on the same instance which is more likely.
This seems like a half-finished job. We’ll see if Microsoft improves on this later.
Comments closedPaul Boal discusses how he incorporated Apache NiFi in an existing process:
Typically, data warehousing and ETL tool vendors recommended that we write your own custom components. After all, the target market for ETL tools is a space where the tools are specifically marketed as reducing the need for “error prone and time consuming” manual coding. When I ran across this tutorial on writing your own NiFi processor it occurred to me that NiFi is the exact opposite. It’s both Open Source and designed for extensibility from the ground up. I found it quite reasonable to write a custom NiFi processor that leverages our existing code base.
The existing code is a Java program with separate classes for each device vendor, all with the same interface to abstract the nuances of each vendor from the main data export program. This interface follows a traditional paradigm: login, query, query, query, logout. Given that my input to NiFi above takes in simple username, password, and query criteria arguments, it seems trivial to create a NiFi processor class that adapts the existing code into the NiFi API. Here’s a slightly abbreviated version of the actual code. (In reality, it’s all of 70 lines of code.)
In almost any realistic scenario, you’re not going to have the opportunity to start from scratch. You will always have legacy components, external dependencies, and existing user bases to satisfy. I like this article because it moves forward from that starting point.
Comments closedErin Stellato shows she can create an Extended Event as fast as a Profiler trace:
I haven’t gotten a ton of comments, but I did get a few (thank you to those have responded!), and I decided to take one of them and create a Trace and create an Extended Events session and see how long it took for each. Jonathan has mentioned before that he can create an XE session as fast as a Trace, and I’ve been thinking that I can as well so I thought I’d test it. It’s a straight-forward Trace versus Extended Events test. Want to see what’s faster? Watch the video here.
I love the “I would pop up the timer on the screen but I don’t know how to do that” bit; very Friday afternoonish.
Comments closedAlex Woodie reports that Qlik Technologies has been acquired by a private equity firm:
After loading data into a server-based associative, in-memory database, Qlik customers could explore the data in a variety of ways from an AJAX Web GUI, enabling them to create and publish all sorts of reports and dashboards. The approach is not entirely dissimilar to the one taken by its rival, Tableau Software, which has also benefited from the big data boom and the democratization of BI.
The combination of market forces and a keen eye for product development were propellant for growth at Qlik. In 2009, the Radnor, Pennsylvania-based company had 11,400 customers and $157 million in revenues. By 2010, it had grown to 13,000 customers and had an IPO. By 2015, the company boasted 37,000 customers, $612 million in revenue, and a market cap north of $2.8 billion.
Qlik is definitely one of the big players in the visualization market, which includes Tableau, and Power BI/SSRS in Gartner’s Leaders quadrant and a bunch of competitors nipping at their heels.
Comments closed