Azure

I get pretty excited about new T-SQL enhancements. Back in 2016, I was so pleased to see Microsoft finally add a string split option to T-SQL, but my enthusiasm was limited when I saw how it was implemented. Now that’s mostly fixed !

While it’s possible to build functions that did string splitting just like I wanted, the problem is that no matter how you implemented them, they were really just too slow. And most importantly, much slower than a built-in function would be.

2021-11-05

Azure Data Factory (ADF) is great for moving data around. It often needs to connect to SQL databases. If you’re creating linked services for this, please try to avoid using SQL logins. Don’t use usernames and passwords for authentication if you can avoid them.

Azure SQL Database lets you can create a user from a data factory’s managed service identity (MSI). MSIs are a special type of Service Principal (SP). They provide an identity where you don’t need to manage the ID or any sort of password.  Azure does that for you.

2021-09-26

I often use the procedure sp_set_firewall_rule to set firewall rules for Azure SQL Server. (There’s a similar call to set the firewall for databases). The other day though, I got an error that had me puzzled:

I also tried it with named parameters and got the same error.

When I looked at my previous scripts, I realised that I had used a Unicode string for the first parameter previously.

2021-08-25

Azure SQL (both Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance) both have different password complexity rules to SQL Server. I was reading an email discussion list and a poster asked where he could find the list of password complexity rules for Azure SQL. I said I’d never seen a list.

Well it turns out that there is a list, but not where you might have thought to look. They’re spelled out in this article:

2021-04-28

Dynamic Data Masking was added to SQL Server back in 2016. I’ve almost never used it since. Why? There were two reasons:

#1: The first reason was that it didn’t work in conjunction with other security features. In particular, you couldn’t use dynamic data masking in conjunction with Always Encrypted. From the start, I’ve been telling the product group that this is a misstep. There’s very little data that I’d want to hide from my own staff, that I’m happy still being visible to a hosting provider.

2021-03-23

When I’m building Azure Data Factory pipelines, I often want to rescale, i.e. change the Service Level Objective (SLO) of Azure SQL Databases before and after processing. For example: I might have a database that sits at S0 or S1 all day long when not being processed (to allows for the odd adhoc query), but I want it at S6 to do overnight ingestion of data and loading of analytic data models. Then I want it to go back to what it was before.

2021-03-02

In the dying days of PASS, one of the attempts at keeping the organization afloat was the introduction of the PASS Pro membership. One benefit of that was access to a series of Learning Experiences. Since the demise of PASS, our friends at Red-Gate have purchased the assets, and that includes those courses.

I was pleased to hear from the Red-Gate team that the courses have now been made available for free, and without any type of paywall/loginwall. That’s just awesome.

2021-02-11

I still get really excited when T-SQL has new language elements added. I’m not talking about new data definition or management statements. I’m talking about new functions and logic. So, as expected, I was really happy when I saw some posts saying that GREATEST and LEAST now seemed to be working in Azure SQL Database.

They’ve been in other database engines before but weren’t part of T-SQL.

I tried them, and sure enough, they work as expected. NOTE: Intellisense hasn’t caught up yet, so they’re still flagged as syntax errors.

2021-01-12

I was really pleased to get to record a SQL Down Under podcast with an old friend Pedro Lopes recently. Pedro is a Principal Program Manager with Microsoft in the Azure Data SQL Server area.

A year or so back, I had Joe Sack on the show telling us where Intelligent Query processing was heading, and Pedro now fills us in on where it’s got to.

We recorded the show earlier in this month but I couldn’t release it until after the PASS summit where some of the features were announced.

2020-11-23

I’ve been in so many companies lately where new CTOs and CIOs claim to have a cloud focus, but all they want to do is migrate all their existing systems from on-premises VMs to cloud-based VMs. They talk about making a cloud transformation but they’re not transforming anything.

I was pleased to get a chance to create a short educational series for the people at PASS to cover some of my thoughts on how to make a real transformation, not just a migration.

2020-10-09