Sql-Server

I ran into this one today and it’s the in the category of things that I’m likely to run into again one day so it’s worth recording it here.

I was trying to configure an unattended execution account for SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 and was getting the above error.

The problem was that even though the machine is just in a workgroup, SQL Server Reporting Services Configuration Manager needs a domain or machine specified for the user name.

2016-09-01

Hi Folks,

I’ve been continuing with my Data Tales series up at sqlmag.com.

This time I’ve written about a pet hate: seeing code that counts rows when all it needs to do is to check for existence. However, all is not as bad as it seems because the optimizer does a pretty good job of protecting us from ourselves. (At least the SQL Server optimizer does )

It’s here: http://sqlmag.com/sql-server/data-tales-10-it-s-matter-existence

Enjoy !

2016-08-25

Hi Folks,

That Power Query webinar that I’m doing for the global Power BI team is on this week.

Love to see you attend.

Registration is here: https://info.microsoft.com/CO-PowerBI-WBNR-FY17-08Aug-25-PowerQuery-PowerBI-Registration.html

2016-08-24

Hi Folks,

I’ve been writing articles for SQL Server Magazine as part of my Data Tales series.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been writing a min-series about a database on a diet.

Earlier parts described the need for size reduction, how ROW and PAGE compression come into play, how to choose between them, etc.

Part 4 (the final part) is now online here:

http://sqlmag.com/sql-server/data-tales-9-case-database-diet-part-4

It covers GZIP compression of large string fields, PDF size reduction in BLOBS, and more.

2016-08-12

Hi Folks,

Want to get your head around Power Query in both Excel and Power BI Desktop?

I’ve got a webinar happening for the Power BI team later this month: https://info.microsoft.com/CO-PowerBI-WBNR-FY17-08Aug-25-PowerQuery-PowerBI-Registration.html

2016-08-05

The link below is to quite a fascinating article that on the surface is about why Uber moved to MySQL from PostgreSQL.

What it really is about is a severe limitation in how PostgreSQL indexes are updated.

With SQL Server, if you update a few columns in a row, only the indexes that have that column are updated. In PostgreSQL, all indexes still need to be updated. I understand why they’ve done that but it’s not a good outcome.

2016-08-04

It’s hard to believe that it’s only a year, given how far Power BI has come.

Many of us in the community got together under the lead of Paul Turley and Adam Saxton and created a short video for Power BI’s birthday.

Looks good:

2016-07-25

I’ve been using the Polybase services in SQL Server 2016 all throughout the pre-release period without any issue.

When I tried using them in the GA (Generally Availability) release, I could never get the two Polybase services to start. They were always stuck in a “Change Pending” state. Trying to start them in SQL Server Configuration Manager basically made SSCM look like it was hung.

Trying to use the Polybase services to create an external data source returned:

2016-07-06

When I work in customer sites, there is a quite a difference between how different sites get data for testing. But it basically comes down to a variation of one of these five:

• Testing? That’s for wimps. (Well perhaps for users)
• I type in all the test data that I need.
• We use a data generator to produce our test data.
• We just periodically get a copy of production data.
• We get production data and it gets masked before we can use it.

It’s the last option that I’m concerned with today. Masking data is challenging and usually much more difficult than imagined. This week, I was working with a masked database and we ended up finding all client details tucked inside a chunk of XML that was used to hold the metadata for a series of images. They had done a good job of removing it from all the normal columns from all tables in the database, but it’s so easy to miss extras like this.

2016-06-12

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