Azure

If you have ever tried to write scripts to configure operating systems, you’d realize just how hard that is to get correct.

For example, if you need to ensure that your virtual machine has two network adapters, and they need to have a specific set of IP addresses, how do you do that?

[caption id=“attachment_2743” align=“alignnone” width=“461”] Image by Markus Spiske[/caption]

The traditional approach for PowerShell (and similar tools) was to try to write a step-by-step script to configure the network adapters the way you want. But where do you start? Do you write a script to check for any existing adapters and loop through them to try to remove them? Do you try to add the ones you want, and then remove the others?

2018-02-16

I’ve worked with T-SQL for a very long time, and over the years I’ve lost count of how many tools I’ve found the need to create to help me in my work.

They have been in a variety of script folders, etc. and whenever I go to use them now, I often have to decide which is the best version of a particular tool, as they’ve also been refined over time.

2017-02-05

There’s an interesting scenario that’s come up in creating some new samples for SQL Server 2016.

I know that for many, many years people have asked for a way to limit developer edition to only use standard edition features, or at least to have a way to flag them. I’ve often thought that I’d like a way to set a “target environment” and have the colorization change anything that I can’t use in standard to an obviously different color.

2016-06-03

Hi Folks,

One of the intriguing options that’s coming as part of SQL Server 2016 is StretchDB. I’ve been spending some time working with it and learning about it, and I’ve ended up with lots of questions.

It was great to get an opportunity to speak to Joe Yong to get all my questions sorted.

Hope you’ll enjoy it too. You’ll find it here:

SQL Down Under Podcast

2016-05-01

In recent months, I’ve been brushing up my R skills. I’ve had a few areas of interest in this:

* R in Azure Machine Learning

* R in relation to Power BI and general analytics

* R embedded (somewhat) in SQL Server 2016

As a client tool, I’ve been using RStudio. It’s been good and very simple but it’s a completely separate environment. So I was excited when I saw there was to be a preview of new R tooling for Visual Studio.

2016-03-10

Hi Folks,

Couldn’t make it to Ignite? The team from Microsoft Australia recorded all the sessions and they are online now.

Here are the three sessions that I delivered:

Azure Datacamp Power Hour:  NOTE: This event is now closed

Things I Wish Developers Knew About SQL Server: NOTE: This event is now closed

Working With SQL Server Spatial: NOTE: This event is now closed

Enjoy!

2015-12-11

AzureCon is the main #Azure related conference each year, and of course, it’s an online conference.

It’s coming up at the end of this month (September).

It’s time to register to see what ScottGu and the people from the Azure team have to tell us.

NOTE: This event is now closed

2015-09-10

Hi Folks, on the 5th June (yes that’s Friday next week), I’m running a Data Camp day for the local Microsoft team. It’s being held at Cliftons in the city.

We’ve got four topics for  the day:

• Azure SQL DB
• Azure DocumentDB
• Azure Machine Learning
• Azure Stream Analytics

If you want to get your head around any/all of these, we’d love to see you there. Places are limited but you must register and can do so here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032627085&Culture=en-AU&community=0

2015-05-25

The team at Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) have pushed out some new content that’s relevant to database people.

First, if you’re wondering about using Azure for SQL Server, the Jumpstart for SQL Server in Azure VMs is worth a look. Longer term, I suspect we’ll mostly end up using SQL Server as a platform service (Azure SQL DB) but in the short-term, implementing it in a VM will be more common as it’s probably both easier when migrating existing applications and a little more familiar to most.

2015-05-24

I find many of the MVA courses great for quickly getting across concepts or areas that I haven’t worked with before.

This month, the local MVP program has asked me to highlight the following MVA courses. The first two in particular look useful for SQL folk. The third one provides good background:

Azure IaaS Technical Fundamentals

Deep Dive into Networking Storage and Disaster Recovery Scenarios

Embracing Open Source Technologies to Accelerate and Scale Solutions

2015-04-18