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Curated SQL Posts

Operation Requires Server to be a Registered Server

Published 2021-12-23 by Kevin Feasel

Garland MacNeill finds one way to solve a problem:

Anyway, it’s been a while since I worked on this AG and I need to get the migration/upgrade done. As I was working on configuring jobs, I ran into a problem where the AG node (as a target node) wasn’t downloading jobs from the Master node, in fact, the last poll was in July.

When I tried to force a poll, I was met with an error message that the server wasn’t registered, never mind it was clearly listed as a target server. Google didn’t find anything useful, other than some questions from 2013. I did come across the syntax to forcefully eject the server as a target with SQL. 

Read on to see how and what to do in the aftermath.

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Extracting SQL Queries from SSIS Packages

Published 2021-12-23 by Kevin Feasel

Bill Fellows works from an…interesting…SSIS package:

Our job was to rewrite this into something more manageable and it appears Azure Data Factory will be the winner. Before we can do that, we need to document what the existing package is doing (the vendor has supplied the incremental load logic) so we can replicate it but in a more economical form. It appears to have the pattern (squint really hard at the picture) Execute SQL Task -> Execute SQL Task -> Sequence container => many data flows -> Data Flow -> Execute SQL Task. The Data Flow Task is named after the table being loaded. An ODBC source with a expression based query, named “ODBC Source 1” wired to an OLE DB Destination, named “OLE DB Destination”. How would you do it, especially given that there are 236 Data Flow Tasks embedded in a single container?

Click through for the answer.

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Power BI Adding Labels for DirectQuery Operations

Published 2021-12-23 by Kevin Feasel

Chris Webb points out something of interest:

If you’re using Power BI in DirectQuery mode against a SQL Server-related data source (ie SQL Server on-prem, Azure SQL DB or Synapse) you may have noticed a new feature that was released a few weeks ago: query labels that allow you to link a SQL query to the Power BI visual that generated it.

There’s nothing you need to do to enable it – it happens automatically. Here’s an example of a TSQL query generated by a DirectQuery mode dataset with it in:

Though I’m not sure if on-prem SQL Server or even Azure SQL Database has a nice way of viewing data by label. I know that dedicated SQL pools do and they’re a rather helpful method for figuring out who (or what) is doing work.

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DevOps for Databricks

Published 2021-12-22 by Kevin Feasel

Anna Wykes starts off with bad news:

In this blog series I explore a variety of options available for DevOps for Databricks. This blog will focus on working with the Databricks REST API & Python. Why you ask? Well, a large percentage of Databricks/Spark users are Python coders. In fact, in 2021 it was reported that 45% of Databricks users use Python as their language of choice. This is a stark contrast to 2013, in which 92 % of users were Scala coders:

What is wrong with the world today?

Semi-seriously, though, do read Anna’s post, as it covers a variety of things you can do with the Databricks REST API, including cluster management and monitoring. I might be jumping the gun a bit, but I am a big fan of Gerhard Brueckl’s Powershell module for Databricks for this kind of work.

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Working with GraphX in Spark

Published 2021-12-22 by Kevin Feasel

Tomaz Kastrun continues a series on Spark with a look at GraphX. Part 20 gives an overview of GraphX:

GraphX is Spark’s API component for graph and graph-parallel computations. GraphX uses Spark RDD and builds a graph abstraction on top of RDD. Graph abstraction is a directed multigraph with properties of edges and vertices.

Part 21 shows off the operators available:

Property graphs have collection of operators, that can take user-defined function and produce new graphs with transformed properties and structure. Core operators are defined in Graph and compositions of core operators are defined as GraphOps, and are automatically available as members of Graph. Each graph representation must provide implementations of the core operations and reuse many of the useful operations that are defined in GraphOps.

Click through for more information on graphs in the Spark ecosystem.

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Dedicated SQL Pool Index, Distribution, and Partition Guidance

Published 2021-12-22 by Kevin Feasel

I have a write-up on the specific value of distributions, indexes, and partitions in Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pools:

Not too long ago, I ended up taking the DP-203 certification exam for sundry reasons. On that exam, they ask a lot about Azure Synapse Analytics, including indexing, distribution, and partitioning strategies. Because these can be a bit different from on-premises SQL Server, I wanted to cover what options are available and when you might choose them. Let’s start with distributions, as that’s the biggest change in thought process.

Read on for the guidance.

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Deploying SQL Server to Azure Container Instance via ARM

Published 2021-12-22 by Kevin Feasel

Rajendra Gupta builds an ARM template:

The Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file for deploying Azure resources automatically. You can use a declarative syntax to specify the resources, their configurations. Usually, if you need to deploy Azure resources, it might be a tiring experience of navigating through different services, their configurations. With the ARM templates, you no longer need to click and navigate around the portal. For example, you can use configure the template for Azure VM or Azure SQL Database deployment.

Click through for a step-by-step walkthrough. I will say, though, that I tend heavily to revise ARM templates the Azure Portal creates. They tend to make everything parameters, to the point where you get inundated with context-free decisions.

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Drawing a Christmas Tree with KQL

Published 2021-12-22 by Kevin Feasel

Guy Reginiano has a task:

KQL isn’t just super-powerful, it’s also fun!
See how you can draw a tree using KQL and learn some of the functions and operators available.
Inspired by https://lnkd.in/eCgFzBTw. Feel free to design and share your own trees!

I kind of want to make this a Hello World type of exercise, ranking languages by their Christmas Tree Generation Capability Score, or CTGC. Maybe I’ll shorten it to TGC to make it a TLA.

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