Sql-Server

I’ve recently been doing work with a site that makes extensive use of Central Management Servers. And that’s an issue if you upgrade past v19.3 of SSMS.

Central Management Servers

If you haven’t used these, it’s the Registered Servers window that you can open in SSMS. (View -> Registered Servers) What it lets you do is set up groups of servers, and execute multi-server queries against all the servers in the group. You can also have a hierarchy of groups with nested folders and then work at different group levels.

2024-05-02

Joe Sack is an old friend. (I’ve known him a long time. He’s not actually old). He’s always fascinating to chat to and so I was so pleased to have him on another SQL Down Under podcast today. Last time was in 2017.

Joe is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft and is working with the integration of data and AI with SQL Copilots. The aim is to use AI and natural language processing to make database management simpler, whether you’ve been doing it for years or just getting started. The experiences he discusses in the show include Azure Copilot integration and Natural language to SQL.

2024-04-27

I saw a question on the Q&A forums about how to connect to the LocalDB version of SQL Server from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). I thought it was worth posting a walkthrough of how to do it.

LocalDB

The first thing to understand about LocalDB is that it doesn’t run as a service. You fire it up as an attached process to another program. The basic idea was that you’d use it from Visual Studio or Azure Data Studio, and those programs would instantiate it as required.

2024-04-21

Another bunch of fun today recording a SQL Down Under show and it’s now published!

This time I had the pleasure of discussing SQL Server and other data-related tools with Erin Stellato.

Erin is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft and works directly with the tools that I wanted to discuss.I’ve known Erin quite a while and she’s always interesting to hear from.

I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find this show (and previous shows) here: SQL Down Under Podcast /

2024-04-09

I really enjoyed recording today’s SQL Down Under show and it’s now published!

This time I had a great conversation with fellow Microsoft Data Platform MVP Angela Henry.

Angela is a principal consultant at Fortified, and on LinkedIn, describes herself as a data mover and shaper.

Angela has a particular fondness for the Microsoft BI Stack and Databricks.

You’ll find Angela online as @sqlswimmer.

I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find this show (and previous shows) here: SQL Down Under Podcast /

2024-03-30

I often look at the results of a query in SSMS and want to save them off somewhere, and what I really want is a table. To do that, at present, I need to:

• Right-click and use Save Results As to go to a CSV
• Use the flat file import wizard (or something) to import the CSV

Now obviously, in some cases, if it was a SELECT query, I could add an INTO clause and just run the query again, but there are many many cases where I want to save the outcome of another type of query. It could also be that I just can’t run the query again for whatever reason.

2024-03-28

Today, another SQL Down Under show is published!

This time I had the great pleasure yesterday to record a podcast with an old friend from the SQL Server and data communities Ronen Ariely.

Ronen is a senior consultant and an applications and data architect with more than 20 years of experience in a variety of programming languages and technologies.

He was awarded as a Microsoft MVP seven times and is active in communities, mostly related to Microsoft Azure, Data Platforms, and Dot.Net programming.

2024-03-26

And yet another new SQL Down Under show is published!

Once again, I had the great pleasure yesterday to record a podcast with one of my long-term data platform MVP friends Armando Lacerda.

Armando is a cloud architect and engineer focused on data platform. He is a long-term data platform MVP, MCT, speaker, trainer and coder.

In the show, we discuss changes involving two aspects of SQL Server 2022:

• Backups using snapshots
• Data virtualization

I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find this show (and previous shows) here: SQL Down Under Podcast /

2024-03-19

And another new SQL Down Under show is published!

Once again, I had the great pleasure yesterday to record a podcast with one of my UK based friends Bob Duffy.

Bob is a Principal Data Architect at Prodata’s SQL Centre of Excellence in Dublin, Ireland. He helps enterprise customers build large scale enterprise data warehouses in Azure, typically integrating ERP and financial systems.

Bob is a long-term Data Platform MVP, a Microsoft Certified Architect, Master, and Analysis Services Maestro. He holds a number of Azure role-based certifications. Bob also specialises in performance tuning, architecture, load testing, DevOps, Software engineering, MQ architecture, semantic modelling and meta data driven design on the MS platform.

2024-03-07

Once again, I had the great pleasure to record a Fabric Down Under podcast. This time it was with a fellow “Down Under” guest Philip Seamark, from across the “ditch” (as we both call it) in New Zealand.

Phil is a member of the Fabric Customer Advisory Team and works as a DAX and Data modelling specialist.

He gets involved when enterprise customers need deeper technical support.

In this show, I discuss Phil’s thoughts on Direct Lake which is one of the very new options that came with Microsoft Fabric. It adds another mode to Power BI, in addition to Import and Direct Query modes that have been there previously.

2024-03-06