A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
If you want to copy huge data from one SQL server to another, try using dbatools which has powershell module underneath.
In the demo here, I’ve compared 2 dbatools commands to move data from one SQL server to another:
Write-DbaDbTableData vs Copy-DbaDbTableData
Click through to see which one wins the speed challenge.
Leave a CommentBoniface Muchendu looks at some changes:
Power BI includes a powerful feature called Publish to Web, which allows users to share interactive reports publicly without requiring viewers to sign in. While this tool simplifies access, it can also create security risks if misused. In this guide, you’ll learn what “Publish to Web” does, how Microsoft updated it for better governance, and how to manage access responsibly.
Click through to see what’s new.
Leave a CommentAndy Brownsword changes things around:
Implicit conversion happens in SQL Server when the engine detects a mismatch in data types and automatically converts from one type to another. This can be helpful as it makes different types interchangeable and is generally transparent to the client, but it can come with issues.
Usually the downside from implicit conversion is seen through performance impact. But we’ve got something a little different today – an inconsistent result set.
Read on for Andy’s example.
Leave a CommentKevin Hill disambiguates product offerings:
Let’s break down the main SQL Server editions: Express, Web, Standard, and Enterprise as well as what makes each one different. Not just in features, but in what they let you do… or stop you from doing.
Click through to learn more about each edition, what it offers, and what official limitations exist.
1 CommentHarmeet Gill shows us how we can bring our own keys to data in OneLake:
One of the highly requested features in Microsoft Fabric is now available: the ability to encrypt data in OneLake using your own keys. As organizations face growing data volumes and tighter regulatory expectations, Customer-Managed Keys (CMK) offer a powerful way to enforce enterprise-grade security and ensure strict ownership of encryption keys and access.
With Microsoft’s OneLake, we’ve built a unified data lake that’s open, secure, and ready for enterprise scale. Now, with support for CMK, we’re giving customers the power to take encryption into their own hands.
Read on to learn more about Microsoft’s default for data encryption, and how you can use your own keys to encrypt the data.
Leave a CommentSunitha Muthukrishna has an update:
Microsoft Fabric Extension for VS Code enables users to manage Fabric items efficiently from within VS Code. We are announcing two new features for Microsoft Fabric Extension for VS Code that allow you to manage Fabric items directly within your workspace. These enhancements are based on customer feedback, and we welcome further input to improve this product.
Click through to see what’s new in the product.
Leave a CommentJon Russell shares some thoughts:
Most database administrators are comfortable with the daily tasks of backup, CHECKDB, index maintenance, and statistics updates. The available guidance for those topics is extensive. Much less has been written about caring for estates that contain hundreds of databases—or a single database large enough to strain conventional maintenance windows. This post will focus on options that help when individual tables or complete databases grow beyond the point where “standard” maintenance jobs finish in a reasonable time.
Click through for Jon’s advice. My big thing is to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb fragmentation. Index fragmentation was very important back in the days of spinning disk, where accessing pages took much longer if you needed to move the disk head. With NVMe storage, all-flash arrays, and even more prosaic solid state drives, random access is typically at least as fast as sequential access, so there’s no real benefit to having pages of data be contiguous.
Patrick LeBlanc has a big list for us:
The June 2025 Fabric update introduces several key enhancements across multiple areas. Power BI celebrates its 10th anniversary with a range of community events, contests, expert-led sessions, and special certification exam discounts. In Data Engineering, Fabric Notebooks now support integration with variable libraries in preview, empowering users to manage configuration values centrally for improved modularity and scalability.
Additional updates span Data Science, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Intelligence, and Data Factory, with new features such as upgraded AI functions, enhanced real-time data capabilities, and improvements to data ingestion and security. These updates collectively aim to streamline workflows, boost performance, and foster greater collaboration across teams.
Click through for the full update.
Leave a CommentEven the most experienced database professionals are known to feel a little anxious when peering into an unfamiliar database. Hopefully, they inspect to see how the data is normalized and how the various tables are combined to answer complex queries. Entity Relationship Maps (ERM) provide a visual overview of how tables are related and can document the structure of the data.
Read on to see how you can do this with the DBeaver database access client.
Leave a CommentReza Rad has something up his sleeve:
To tidy up your Power BI solution, there are some options, and one of them is hiding fields from the report view. This option, although simple, has a significant impact on making your Power BI solution very tidy and clean and easier to maintain. However, you might wonder what are fields that have to be hidden in Power BI? In this article, I will explain how to hide a field in report view, and then what are fields which are a good candidate for this option. If you like to learn more about Power BI. Read Power BI book from Rookie to Rock Star.
The very short answer is, hide things that business users won’t (or shouldn’t) care about. Reza gives much more guidance on the topic.
Based on the comments section, this appears to be a re-post from several years ago, but still worth reading because the content is evergreen.
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