Microsoft Learn has a community content pilot running right now. They are looking to see how content from community members might provide different value to the content provided by their team members.
So, I decided that I should submit an article to see how it goes, and to find out how it works.
At present, it’s all hosted in a GitHub repository, and no surprise, is all written in Markdown.
2023-09-26
This is part 4 of a series on working with change data capture (CDC) in Azure SQL Database. This part discusses how to enable it and how to use it.
When I was reading the documentation for CDC in Azure SQL Database, I kept coming across a mention that it required at least an S3 service level objective (SLO), if you were using a DTU-based database.
I really hoped that wasn’t the case.
2023-09-23
It’s scary how much of the world’s data lives in CSVs. Yet, as a standard, it’s problematic. So many implementations just don’t work as expected. Today, I had a client asking about why Azure Data Factory wouldn’t read a CSV that, while odd, was in a valid format.
The simplest equivalent of the file that wouldn’t load, would be one like this:
First Column,Second Column,Third Column,Fourth Column
12,Terry Johnson,Paul Johnson,031-23423
13,Mary Johnson,"Paul,Johnson",031-23423
14,Mia Johnson,"Paul ""the beast"", Johnson",031-23423
16,Cherry Johnson,Paul Johnson,031-23423
There are meant to be four columns. The source system wrapped strings in quotes only when the string contained a comma, as that was the delimiter for the file.
2023-09-12
I had the great pleasure to get to spend time today, talking with Mark Pryce-Maker. We were discussing the SQL warehousing experience in Microsoft Fabric.
Mark is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, where he’s working closely with the Microsoft Fabric team. He has a strong background in many areas of data, most recently prior to Fabric, with helping customers migrate to Azure Synapse Analytics. He has worked extensively with the dedicated SQL pools in that service.
2023-09-07
I was pleased to see Reza Rad’s latest book Pro Power BI Architecture: Development, Deployment, Sharing, and Security for Microsoft Power BI Solutions: Rad, Reza: 9781484295373: Amazon.com: Books now out the door. Reza is an old friend, fellow Data Platform MVP, and fellow member of the Microsoft Regional Director program.
I was pleased to have been a technical reviewer for this book, and I hope that, along with the other reviewers, we have improved what was already a good book.
2023-08-28
I’ve been fascinated by what happened at Chernobyl for a long time. Many of my readers wouldn’t know that when I first started university, I was studying nuclear physics and mathematics. Wasn’t long afterwards that I headed into computing but, at the time, there were very few degree courses on what’s now called computing.
I decided to move on from that study for many reasons, but a primary one was that I could see Australia heading into a pretty solid ban on using nuclear power. The only reactor running in the country was a high flux reactor at Lucas Heights and was used primarily for producing medical isotopes. (It was replaced by a 20MW open-pool lightwater reactor in 2007).
2023-08-12
I can’t tell you how many times lately, that I’ve seen people writing about service principles when they really mean service principals. These are entirely different concepts!
I did a certification exam the other day, and it was asking about service principles. I was left wondering how many people had reviewed that before it was released.
But what’s worse, is when people bake the wrong one into code libraries that others need to use. I was reading some content from Microsoft Learn: Quickstart: Manage data with Azure Cosmos DB Spark 3 OLTP Connector for API for NoSQL and I saw this code example:
2023-08-11
I had the great pleasure to get to spend time today, talking with Josh Caplan about OneLake.
Josh Caplan serves as a Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft, where he’s now leading product management for Microsoft OneLake. He has a strong background in managing products like Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Servers, and Azure Analysis Services. Before his current role, Josh contributed to enhancing developer tools for Power BI and worked with Bing to harness its vast data resources.
2023-08-10
I’ve been a big fan of Shaun Micallef for many years. So I was very excited to listen to his new book Tripping Over Myself, A Memoir of a Life in Comedy both to learn more about his background, and to hear his thoughts on it.
I truly appreciate his sense of humour, and as someone who speaks publicly regularly, I appreciate watching his timing and delivery. That’s the number one reason why I wanted to listen to this on Audible rather than reading the book. Shaun reads the book himself, and I knew that hearing him deliver the content would add to the value it brings.
2023-07-29
On July 27th 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT, the forerunner to the versions of Windows we use today, particularly the server versions.
If you’re old enough, one thing you’d remember about this event is how signficant it was. At the time, if you wanted a server-based operating system on a PC, you didn’t have that many choices. We were predominantly using variants of Unix, most commonly Xenix.
Importantly, most other server systems were largely text-based. With Windows NT, Microsoft brought the power of a graphical interface to mass market server operating systems.
2023-07-27