The Bit Bucket

I have to say that I continue to be frustrated with finding out how to do things in Windows 8. Here’s another one and it’s recorded so it might help someone else. I’ve also documented what I tried so that if anyone from the product group ever reads this, they’ll understand how I searched for it and might try to make it easier.

I wanted to add a network loopback adapter, to have a fixed IP address to work with when using an “internal” network with Hyper-V. (The fact that I even need to do this is also painful. I don’t know why Hyper-V can’t make it easy to work with host system folders, etc. as easily as I can with VirtualPC, VirtualBox, etc. but that’s a topic for another day).

2013-06-13

One of the things that I’ve been busy with lately is reviewing a series of upcoming whitepapers from Microsoft.

The SQLCAT team today launched one of those whitepapers. It’s a performance guide for SQL Server when working with Azure VMs (Virtual Machines).

It’s great to see that it’s been released. There’s more to working with SQL Server in Azure than just putting it onto a VM. It’s great to see much of this now documented.

2013-06-03

I’m really pleased to see the number of courses that we’re offering is increasing.

By popular demand, we’ve extended our Query Performance Tuning and Advanced T-SQL class to Sydney. Previously, we’ve only been running this course in Melbourne but demand in Sydney for it has continued to grow. For those that might like a Sydney-based offering, you’ll find details here now: https://training.sqldownunder.com (Also, as usual, we have several ways to attend the class. The first two days on query performance tuning, and the last three days on Advanced T-SQL are also available as standalone courses).

2013-06-03

If you have followed any of the Azure website forums, you’d realize that having SSL available was one of the highest rated requests. That’s hardly surprising given the number of clients that want to use these sites for eCommerce work.

So it’s really good to see that Scott Guthrie and the team have been listening and that SSL is now available. To see the details, click on the “SSL” button in the “Learn More” area of the Azure pricing page. An FAQ is also provided.

2013-06-03

Yesterday I was at a site where they decided to change the service account for the SQL Server services on a set of systems. After changing the service accounts, SQL Server restarted just fine on all machines except one.

I had used the SQL Server Configuration Manager to make the changes (important to not just use the Services applet in Administrative Tools) but I got the typical error telling me that the service wouldn’t start in a timely fashion. The server was running SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2.

2013-05-30

I was so glad to hear today that Azure is expanding to Australia. This helps with two remaining areas of concern that I’ve heard from a variety of customers:

• Compliance and data sovereignty (not wanting to store data outside Australia)
• Latency (previously high latency even to our nearest external data centres)

With both these concerns now disappearing, it’s time for more Australian customers to get involved with Azure if they’ve been resisting so far. 

2013-05-21

Fellow MVP Alessandro Cardoso sent me information today about a private cloud and virtualisation event that’s running later this month.

It’s being offered in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.

2013-05-17

Hi Folks,

On Thursday night, I got to record a podcast with Reza Rad. I was interested to speak to Reza after reading his SQL Server 2012 Integration Services Cookbook.

In the show, we discuss SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) extensibility and some aspects of performance tuning for SSIS.

You’ll find the show here: SQL Down Under Podcast

Enjoy!

2013-05-13

I’m really impressed by the rate that the Azure team is making and releasing enhancements. Scott Guthrie posted about these again recently.

The following items in the announcement were ones that I think can be useful to those with an interest in SQL Server:

* General availability of Azure VMs. While we’ve had SQL Database and SQL Reporting available as services in Azure, we don’t have the other parts of the database platform. With Azure VMs, you can spin up a VM to run SQL Server.

2013-04-19

It’s great to see the constant roll-out of capabilities across the Azure platform.

One in particular that many have been waiting for is Active Directory. Scott Guthrie posted today that it’s now available for production use. This is particularly significant and also enables options for on-premises directory sync and federation. If you have been using Office365, you have already been using Azure AD.

Scott also mentioned that they are about to open a preview of a link from OAuth 2 (or OpenID) to Azure AD. That will enable you to use alternate credentials (such as Twitter credentials) to authenticate against Azure AD.

2013-04-09