Microsoft Learn has a community content pilot running right now. They are looking to see how content from community members might provide different value to the content provided by their team members.
So, I decided that I should submit an article to see how it goes, and to find out how it works.
At present, it’s all hosted in a GitHub repository, and no surprise, is all written in Markdown.
2023-09-26
This is part 4 of a series on working with change data capture (CDC) in Azure SQL Database. This part discusses how to enable it and how to use it.
When I was reading the documentation for CDC in Azure SQL Database, I kept coming across a mention that it required at least an S3 service level objective (SLO), if you were using a DTU-based database.
I really hoped that wasn’t the case.
2023-09-23
I can’t tell you how many times lately, that I’ve seen people writing about service principles when they really mean service principals. These are entirely different concepts!
I did a certification exam the other day, and it was asking about service principles. I was left wondering how many people had reviewed that before it was released.
But what’s worse, is when people bake the wrong one into code libraries that others need to use. I was reading some content from Microsoft Learn: Quickstart: Manage data with Azure Cosmos DB Spark 3 OLTP Connector for API for NoSQL and I saw this code example:
2023-08-11
This is part 3 of a series on working with change data capture (CDC) in Azure SQL Database. This part discusses how to enable it and how to use it.
To show how this works, I have created an Azure SQL Database called CDCTest. I created it as a DTU-based database with a service level objective (SLO) of S3. I’ll discuss more about the licensing implications of CDC in part 4.
2023-06-02
Microsoft has had a strong lead in BI and analytics for a long time now. The introduction of the tabular data models in 2012 was a watershed moment.
Today, they have announced a private preview of Microsoft Fabric. It’s a bigger deal than the tabular model was, and will set the direction of BI tooling for a long time to come.
The opposition was already struggling to keep up, and in fact, hadn’t managed to do so. Microsoft Fabric will up the ante much, much higher than where we already were.
2023-05-24
I recently noticed a blog post from Jay Gordon that was calling out interesting content from Blaize Stewart on antipatterns for development with Azure Cosmos DB.
I thought this would be a perfect topic for one of our Cosmos Down Under podcasts and Blaize agreed to take part.
So much content talks about what to do with a product, and even though everyone knows there are things you shouldn’t do, very little content talks about these antipatterns. It was great to speak to Blaize about it, and to get his updated thoughts.
2023-05-17
In the part 1 of this series, I discussed the positioning of Change Data Capture. In part 2, I want to cover how it works.
There are many ways that you can output details of changes that occur in data within SQL Server. Many of those methods require actions to occur at the time the data change is made. This can be problematic.
The first problem with this, is the performance impact on the application that’s making the change. If I update a row in a table and there is part of the process that writes details of that change to some type of audit or tracking log, I’ve now increased the work that needs to happen in the context of the application that’s making the change. Generally what this means, is that I’ve slowed the application down by at least doubling the work that needs to be performed. That might not be well-received.
2023-03-06
I often need to capture the changes from one database into another. The most common reason is that I’m wanting to bring changes from a transactional system across into a data warehouse that’s part of a BI setup.
So which technology is best to use for this?
That’s not a trivial question to answer but here are some thoughts:
Unfortunately, this one’s not available for Azure SQL DB as yet. Azure SQL DB can be a subscriber in Transactional Replication. We often use it this way. If we have an on-premises SQL Server, one of our favourite ways to get data into the cloud is by using Transactional Replication. (If you need to get your head around Replication with SQL Server, just head to our course here).
2023-02-26
I published a new Cosmos Down Under podcast today.
In the podcast, I’ve discussed the new integration between Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Data Explorer with the program manager for the feature: Vincent-Philippe Lauzon.
It’s a great new capability and worth half an hour of your time to find out about it.
I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find it, along with all Cosmos Down Under podcasts at:
2023-02-17
I recorded the first of a series of podcasts for the SQL Server 2022 timeframe recently. Once again, it was great to chat with another old friend Davide Mauri. Davide is a Principal Product Manager for Azure SQL Database.
Note that the topic I chose for today was the new sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint system stored procedure, and it’s currently only available for Azure SQL Database but I expect it will get ported to other flavours of SQL Server over time. Davide has been deeply involved with the development of this procedure.
2022-12-16
