| The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News | Hand-picked content to sharpen your professional edge |
| The Wide Impact of PASS I’m writing this a week after the end of the first Virtual PASS Summit. For those who don’t know, let me share a couple of things. First, the PASS organization itself is in a bit of financial trouble at this writing. Second, I’m on the PASS Board, so I’m tasked with helping to keep the ship afloat. As such, I’ve been thinking about the organization quite a lot recently. Let me share a few thoughts. I believe that we, the community of data professionals, benefit from this organization. Now, you may never have been to a Summit, a SQLSaturday, a local user group, one of the many live Microsoft events that PASS puts on, or any of the myriad online and virtual events that PASS organizes and presents. I’m saddened that this is true, but it may well be. This could be because of the cost of Summit or just because there hasn’t been a SQLSaturday near you or you never saw the virtual events being offered. Not to mention the fact, you may just be busy keeping your head above water at work. Despite this, you too have likely benefited from the PASS organization. Now how can I say that? PASS started over twenty years ago. It started as just Summit. It didn’t do anything else. However, over time, it grew. Through that growth, quite a few people engaged with the organization, myself included. Many of those people started volunteering with the organization. They started user groups. Maybe they organized SQLSaturdays. They started presenting training and learning sessions because of PASS. These people started mentoring others, using principals they picked up from the organization. Some of them wrote books or recorded videos. Turn and ask one of the big name data pros where they got their start or how they grew into being a big name data professional, many will point to PASS. So, while you may not have been to a single PASS event, if you’ve read one of my books, blog posts or articles, you’re benefitting from the fact that PASS helped me shape my career into what I have today. I know that if the organization goes away, you sure won’t. The community of data professionals will continue. People run their own events all the time. We follow one another on social media. Blogs, videos, articles, books, all of that will continue. However, we will have lost a central, organizing body for the community. A prime channel of sharing a message as important as “Connect, Share, Learn” will be gone. Organizations will put together their own conferences, virtual or otherwise. But a global, independent gathering place will be lost. The community will absolutely continue, but it will be less. Fingers crossed, we keep it going. Grant Fritchey Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums | The Weekly News | All the headlines and interesting SQL Server information that we've collected over the past week, and sometimes even a few repeats if we think they fit. |
Vendors/3rd Party Products |
Cross-server references keep cropping up as a problem for development and build. Phil Factor demonstrates how using linked server 'aliases' can get around these issues, even if the individual databases use four-part references within the code rather than synonyms. |
Louis Davidson explains how he manages and shares several different sources of SQL Prompt code snippets, in a single Snippet library, using Dropbox and source control. |
Phil Factor's take on the best ways to reverse or accelerate your way out of the problems caused by a failed database update. |
We’re inviting you to take part in the 2021 State of Database DevOps survey! Now in its 5th year, the leading research on Database DevOps will also explore how DevOps strategies have contributed to the resilience of the database during the pandemic. Complete the survey to get exclusive access to the final report and the chance to win a $500 Amazon gift card. |
AI/Machine Learning/Cognitive Services |
Conversational AI can offer a way to provide that ... |
An AI that completes quests in a text-based adventure game by talking to the characters has learned not only how to do things, but how to get others to... |
It’s no secret that machine-learning models tuned and tweaked to near-perfect performance in the lab often fail in real settings. This is typically put down to a mismatch between... |
It’s been a while since I worked with compressio... |
Indexes let your queries run faster. When you need to adjust your indexing policies, database engines re-indexes your data respecting to your changes. In Cosmos DB, when... |
Quick video showing you how to failover your Azure SQL Database between your primary and secondary location. The post [Video] Azure SQL Database – Failing Over (Failover Groups) appeared first... |
Azure Synapse (SQL Data Warehouse and Data Lake) |
Wolfgang Strasser checks out a small but helpful addition to Azure Synapse Analytics: Good morning, day, afternoon or night – wherever and whenever you read…Continue readingFolders in Azure Synapse... |
Career Growth and Certifications |
This week, I published two blog posts: How Bad Sta... |
Last week I presented on three separate occasions during what is considered the biggest Microsoft Data Platform conference of the year, the PASS Summit: Full-day pre-conference session Speaker Idol... The... |
Community Interests and PASS |
Virtual conferences can be a lot more awesome. Her... |
Last week was the first PASS Virtual Summit. This ... |
This was the first year in 16 years for me that th... |
At the recent PASS Virtual Summit I and the other ... |
Whether you caught a single session, took a pre-co... |
Computing in the Cloud (Azure, Google, AWS) |
For those companies that can’t yet move to the c... |
Our customers build applications that need to serv... |
Azure Monitor and Log Analytics are a very importa... |
Have you ever cringed when you received your month... |
Conferences, Classes, Events, and Webinars |
I was lucky enough to attend the Data Platform Sum... |
The first EightKB back in July was a real blast. F... |
We’re back! The first EightKB back in July was a real blast. Five expert speakers delivered mind-melting content to over 1000 attendees! We were honestly blown away by how... |
Key Details What: SQL Saturday Montreal.Where: Internet Montreal.When: Saturday, November 21st.Admission is free. Register on the SQL Saturday website. What I’m Presenting 3:00 PM — 04:00 PM EST — Data Virtualization... |
With 2020 coming to a close, it's time to look at the new year ahead. Join our final 2020 summit this December 10th, to discover how to implement a generative culture for successful IT teams and how database DevOps will drive growth and ROI in a remote world. Register to tune in live or watch the recordings. |
Join SQLServerCentral Editor, Steve Jones for this Microsoft Azure hosted webinar to learn how to rapidly implement a database DevOps solution with Azure and Redgate tools. You'll discover how database DevOps solutions can help your organization protect business-critical data and improve the efficiency and quality of your software delivery. |
This seems oddly specific, but someone or somethin... |
Data Mining / Data Analysis |
In the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, several competing projects launched around a deceptively simple concept: your phone could alert you if you’d crossed paths with someone who... |
Data Privacy, Compliance, and GDPR |
Recently nine pharmacists from across the count... |
Click to learn more about author Pratip Biswas. Co... |
This month, we build on our “explain the change” challenge, as we bring you another article from our back-to-basics series called what is…?, where we break down some common... |
Database Design, Theory and Development |
To prevent data change anomalies, a database shoul... |
DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) |
One question which comes up periodically from our ... |
The next question in this series of blog posts I want to tackle is: What’s the smallest recommended size of development team that can reasonably set up and manage... |
Another great question that I think I can try to answer: I always gets bogged down in the details and worry about doing it wrong and making a mess... |
Redgate has recently opened the 2021 State of Data... |
If you’re attempting to implement automation in ... |
I recently took part in a panel discussion at the PASS Virtual Summit 2020 entitled: Challenges to Implementing Database DevOps. The interaction with the attendees was stupendous. We received... |
Dino Esposito continues his series on git. In this article, he explains how to initialize a repository, track files, and revert to a specific revision. |
ETL/SSIS/Azure Data Factory/Biml |
In this article, learn more about ETLT and see an overview of ETL and ELT, advantages and use cases, and more. |
eWEEK LAPTOP ANALYSIS: HP builds PCs for personas,... |
In today's review, we are taking a look at the suc... |
The M1 is amazingly fast. More importantly, it's a... |
The Next Unit of Computing branding, known as NUC ... |
SQL Developer is a popular free tool for working w... |
Performance Tuning SQL Server |
Wanna attend all my live classes for two full year... |
Introduction The Filter operator is used to remove... |
If You Remember Part 1 We looked at a couple exam... |
When your query has a scalar user-defined function in it, SQL Server may not parallelize it and may hide the work that it’s doing in your execution plan. To... |
Or “Default”, If That’s Your Kink Look, I’m not saying there’s only one thing that the “Default” cardinality estimator does better than the “Legacy” cardinality estimator. All I’m saying is... |
PowerPivot/PowerQuery/PowerBI |
We've looked at images from sources like OneDrive ... |
Just starting with Power BI? Maybe you've been usi... |
For many users in the finance, insurance, retail, ... |
Level: Intermediate. One of the commercial services I offer is to complete a health check of Power BI deployments. I look at everything including the data model, the DAX,... |
We've looked at images from sources like OneDrive ... |
Product Reviews and Articles |
I was recommended Making Work Visible by a develop... |
Phil Factor describes the problem of preserving data that is left 'in limbo' when you need to revert the database to a previous version that has no way of... |
Phil Factor explores a lesser-known capability of SQL Compare, which is to help you maintain a 'traditional', well-documented, single file build script, for creating the current version of the... |
Product Upgrades and Releases |
Our customers want to have a high availability, scalable firewall service to protect their virtual networks in the cloud. Security is the number one priority of AWS, which has... |
Are you interested in guest posting? Publish at DataScience+ via your RStudio editor. Category Introduction Tags Import Data Python Tips & Tricks Let me create a module with two functions and Add Multiply I call... |
This little useless-useful R function is not that useless after-all. Many of the R programmers have had some issues with namespaces in R environment and lost some time debugging, that turned out to be due to variable name or function name. |
by Hong Ooi I’m pleased to announce that the Azu... |
This little useless-useful R function is not that useless after-all. Many of the R programmers have had some issues with namespaces in R environment and lost some time debugging,... |
I can remember several years ago every time someon... |
Let’s take a look at how to display Always Encrypted Data in SSRS with a gMSA (Group Managed Service Account). We are mixing some technologies […] The post Always Encrypted... The... |
There are a handful of options when backing up SQL Server databases. A DBA must understand the differences and come up with a plan that protects the organisation’s data. In this article, Pamela Mooney explains service level agreements, recovery models, and some strategies to ensure that the data can be restored quickly. |
eWEEK DATA POINTS: Most organizations are not cybe... |
Total: 1 Average: 5We often see poorly written com... |
Total: 1 Average: 5 Creating and managing stoplists serves as one of the main components responsible for improving the Full-Text Search performance alongside reducing the size of the index.... |
Total: 1 Average: 5 Introduction CASE Expressions in SQL Server are used for the column values substitution to present the result sets in a particular fashion or simple queries.... |
Total: 1 Average: 5 In the previous part of the se... |
The US National Science Foundation has just announced it is going to begin decommissioning the famous Arecibo Observatory, the 1,000-foot-wide, 900-ton radio telescope located in Puerto Rico. It’s a... |
New Zealand company Rocket Lab has hit a key milestone with the successful launch and recovery of its flagship Electron rocket. The mission, the firm’s 16th so far, included... |
Pfizer will apply for emergency permission to distribute its covid-19 vaccine in the US and is ready to start shipping the shots within “hours” of getting a government green... |
The trucks, built by BYD, will haul cargo to and from its hub at LAX airport. | This email has been sent to [email protected]. To be removed from this list, please click here. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the [email protected]. This newsletter was sent to you because you signed up at SQLServerCentral.com. Note: This is not the SQLServerCentral.com daily newsletter list, and unsubscribing to this newsletter will not stop you receiving the SQL Server Central daily newsletters. If you want to be removed from that list, you can follow the instructions on the daily newsletter. |
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