Auto Renew Subscriptions (2024-03-23 DBW)

Database Weekly for March 23, 2024 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [Database Weekly]( The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News by SQLServerCentral.com Hand-picked content to sharpen your professional edge Editorial  Auto Renew Subscriptions This week I saw [an announcement from Azure that you can set up auto-renew subscriptions]( for your reservations for your resources. This allows you to set up auto-renew for reservations to prevent them from not renewing and being charged at the pay-as-you-go rates. This reminds me of the old [Columbia House]( deals, which I had for both cassettes and CDs. For some time these were good deals for me, but over time, I'd lose track of the subscription, forget to return things, and end up purchasing items I didn't want. An auto-renewal is likely both a good idea and a bad one, as I suspect that many organizations lose track of their renewal dates when they have an estate of any size. Administrators or finance people will come and go, and they might not know the history of why we reserved something, like a VM, and could forget to renew these. Often we are still using resources, so renewals make sense. However, we also stop using resources or don't use them at the same capacity levels, so perhaps we want to not renew. The [docs for this feature]( note that the renewal creates a new reservation, and this setting can be changed at any time. However, some of the other docs aren't clear to me. The descriptions read as though someone has an idea about how this works, and they don't quite clearly detail the workings of the system for readers that are not familiar with this feature. As an example, the docs say if you enable renewal more than 30 days before expiration, then you get an email explaining renewal costs. However, with automatic renewal, do you get the email? When are costs disclosed or detailed? Maybe more importantly, the doc notes the price may change between when you lock the renewal price and when the renew time occurs. Does this mean you pay the higher price? Are you notified each year? Maybe more importantly, if we create resources at different times, can we somehow get renewals dates to align? Whether this comes to finance people or IT people, at some point with a big cloud presence, you might have renewals coming every month or week. Who would be able to track this stuff appropriately if it's a constant item to check? I can see plenty of people starting to ignore these notices if they come too often. There are other issues as well, such as a SKU being different (or deprecated) over time. Will someone figure out how to upgrade to a newer SKU? If so, will they remember to set auto-renewal? Does this transition to the new SKU? The documentation is woefully incomplete, though I'd be happy to submit PRs for edits. I just don't know what the answers are, and I suspect that whoever built this feature might not have thought through all the scenarios. Certainly the individual writing the documentation didn't. The cloud is complex, and billing is complex. Tracking and managing this is going to be partially a technical role, and I suspect many of us won't know what the implications are for the choices we make. I also suspect we'll get notifications for resources that we have no knowledge of and will need to research more about the item. We'll become more of [a financial DBA]( over time, which may or may not be the job we want. Steve Jones - SSC Editor [Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums](  The Weekly News All the headlines and interesting SQL Server information that we've collected over the past week, and sometimes even a few repeats if we think they fit. AI/Machine Learning/Cognitive Services [Public AI as an Alternative to Corporate AI]( From Schneier on Security This mini-essay was my contribution to a round table on Power and Governance in the Age of AI. It’s nothing I haven’t said here before, but for anyone who... [An AI-driven “factory of drugs” claims to have hit a big milestone]( From Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories Alex Zhavoronkov has been messing around with arti... [The Best Methodology for Moving AI Data and Keeping It Safe]( From Dataversity Artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to change the global economy and potentially, one day, every aspect of our lives. There are numerous possible uses for the technology across industries, and... [Introducing Copilot in Azure SQL Database (Preview)]( From Azure SQL We are excited to announce that Copilot in Azure S... [How to Enable Microsoft Copilot Effectively: A Short Guide]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase The buzz around Microsoft Copilot has been well-do... [Exploring AI Tools for Writing SQL Queries - Are they reliable?]( From MSSQL Tips In this article, we look at how AI tools can gener... Azure Databricks, Spark and Snowflake [Learning Spark SQL Numeric Functions - Basic, Binary, Statistical]( From MSSQL Tips Learn how to use Spark SQL numeric functions that ... [Removing Objects Is Not So Simple]( From Sherpa of Data When you’re working between SQL Server and Snowflake, there can be a lot of crossover that may make you forget what system you’re working in. Sometimes it’s close, but... Azure SQL [Meet Microsoft SQL Product Leader - Sanjay Mishra | Data Exposed]( From Azure SQL Learn about the future of Azure SQL with Microsoft SQL Product Leader, Sanjay Mishra.  Watch on Data Exposed  Resources: Azure SQL Documentation  View/share our latest episodes on Microsoft Learn and YouTube! [RestorableDroppedDatabases in Azure SQL DB & their naming convention]( From Microsoft Azure Blog An issue was reported recently where the customer complained that in their cost analysis report of their Azure SQL DBs, the db name appears appended with a comma(,) and a number. While they agreed with the DB name in the report, they didn’t understand the number after the comma and its significance. [Introducing database watcher for Azure SQL]( From Azure SQL Reliable, in-depth, and at-scale monitoring of database performance has been a long-standing top priority for SQL customers. Today, we are pleased to announce the public preview of database watcher... Azure SQL Managed Instance [Introducing Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-gen GP]( From Azure SQL We are excited to announce the public preview of N... Career, Employment, and Certifications [Dear Women in Tech, You Can Present at EightKB, Too]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs Last year, I submitted and was accepted to present at the EightKB conference. At first, I thought my current presentation wasn’t advanced enough, but Tracy Boggiano convinced me otherwise.... The... Cloud - AWS [muhammad ali: Transitioning from Heroku PostgreSQL to AWS EC2: Step-by-Step Guide]( From Planet Postgres The blog describes all the steps required to safely migrate your Heroku PostgreSQL database to self managed PostgreSQL on AWS EC2 instance using logshipping method. The post Transitioning... Cloud - Azure [Billing for Azure Monitor stateful log search alerts]( From Azure Updates Starting from May 1, 2024, you will be charged for stateful log alerts in Azure Monitor. [You can now opt in automatically renew your reservation at time of purchase.]( From Azure Updates You can now opt in automatically renew your reservation at time of purchase, which provides an easy way to continue getting reservation discounts. Computing in the Cloud (Azure, Google, AWS) [7 Actionable Tips for Saving Money in the Cloud]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Here are seven strategies that businesses should consider adopting to reduce their cloud spending. Conferences, Classes, Events, and Webinars [SqlBits 2024 – Day 1]( From SQLBI After delivering the first training day at SqlBits 2024 – it was intense! [SQL Down Under show 86 with guest Armando Lacerda discussing SQL Server 2022 snapshot backups and data virtualization is now published]( From The Bit Bucket 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... [Free Live Webcasts: Slide & Demo Versions of How to Think Like the Engine]( From Brent Ozar Unlimited You’re comfortable writing queries to get the data you need. But you’re uncomfortable if someone asks you how it works, how SQL Server and Azure SQL DB turn your queries... [Join me In Boston May 10 For A Full Day Of SQL Server Performance Tuning Training]( From Erik Darling Data Spring Training This May, I’ll be presenting my full day training session The Foundations Of SQL Server Performance Tuning. All attendees will get free access for life to my... DMO/SMO/Powershell [How To Create Your Own PowerShell Cmdlets (Video Tutorial)]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Ever want to make your own PowerShell cmdlets? Wat... [How To Use PowerShell for Active Directory Password Help]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Learn how to use PowerShell for password generation and automation within Active Directory environments, focusing on adherence to security policies and best practices. Data Science [Plots comparing momentum-based GD and Nesterov’s AGD]( From Statistical Odds & Ends In this previous post, I introduced momentum-based gradient descent (GD) as well as Nesterov’s accelerated gradient descent (AGD). In this post, I show a few plots of how the... Data Visualisation [order in the sort!]( From Storytelling with Data When you’re visualizing categorical data, sorting the bars in your chart is usually a straightforward task. Or is it?In most cases, you probably take the category with the largest... DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) [Platform Engineering Strengthens Security, Productivity, DevOps Report Finds]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools DevOps is benefiting in many ways from platform engineering, according to a new report from Puppet by Perforce. [Azure Automation - Close Encounters of the Runbook Kind.]( From SQL Rod Nobody likes to do the same monontonous task over and over again. Well, saying that, maybe some out there do in order to look and feel... [Video: Get into Action with GitHub Actions]( From 36 Chambers – The Legendary Journeys THE VIDEO THE SYNOPSIS In this video, we dig into GitHub’s process for executing code: GitHub Actions workflows. We’ll learn what Actions and workflows are, how we can create... [DevOps: It’s About the Team, Not Just the Tech]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs In November 2023 I did a session at PASS Summit and one of my sessions was voted That session was called DevOps is about Growing People rather than... The... DocumentDB/Key-Value/Graph/other NoSQL Databases [Redis license update: What you need to know]( Today, Redis, a leading provider of in-memory data store solutions, announced a transition in its open-source licensing approach. Redis is moving away from the BSD 3-Clause License to a dual-license model, offering developers the choice between the Redis Source Available License version 2 (RSALv2) or the Server-Side Public License version 1 (SSPLv1). [Four New Apache Cassandra 5.0 Features to Be Excited About]( From Dataversity With the recent beta release of Apache Cassandra 5.0, now is a great time for teams to give it a spin and discover 5.0’s most interesting and anticipated new capabilities. ... General [C# Cancellation Tokens in AWS]( A colleague of mine once asked about cancellation tokens in AWS. This question got me thinking about this problem and got me curious on whether there is any support. Turns out it is an interesting topic with lots of pitfalls. [Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches in Microsoft Fabric]( Nikola Ilic, best known as Data Mozart, published a great article and video about how to make semantic model data available in Microsoft Fabric. This allows the data to be used in lakehouses or data warehouses. One major question that arises is, “should we use a top-down or bottom-up (or both) approach in Microsoft Fabric?” This decision especially affects custom projects built for large corporations. [The Importance of Retention]( It is always an afterthought. New objects are created that start off small and current. New feature development takes over and the recently architected data structures become old news. Over time, data grows and suddenly a previously small table contains millions or billions of rows. Is all that data necessary? How long should it be retained for? If there is no answer to this question, then the actuality may be “Forever”, or more honestly “No one knows for sure.” Retention takes on many forms and this article dives into ways in which data can be managed over time to ensure that it is fast, accurate, and readily available. [Making Accessibility Part of the Design Process – Part 2]( We live in the height of the digital age, where the digital space has become a thriving community, with every person craving a great yet personalized experience. In this era, there is one centralized truth with undeniable clarity: Accessibility is no longer a mere option; it is the cornerstone that will lead to the creation of a truly welcoming community. In this second part of our series on accessibility design, we will discuss essential topics that lie at the heart of crafting accessible digital environments. We’ll begin by throwing more light on three of the five fundamental visual patterns vital to your designs: color contrasting, font sizing, and labeling and iconography. [Prompt+ EAP: your AI-powered database development partner in the making]( Last year, we introduced AI capabilities to SQL Prompt via the Prompt+ Early Access Program (EAP). Using generative AI-powered insights and context-based awareness, Prompt+ takes natural language queries and turns them into SQL coding suggestions. Check out this blog to learn more about Prompt+ and how to join the EAP waitlist. Hardware [New Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 Get Intel AI NPU and 53% Performance Boost]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase Microsoft unveiled two new Surface devices during ... [StarTech Unveils 15-in-1 Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Dock with Quad Display Support]( From AnAndTech StarTech.com has introduced its latest Thunderbolt 4/USB4 docking station, which has a plethora of ports and supports four display outputs. This makes it suitable for 4Kp60 quad-monitor setups often... MDX/DAX [Vpax Obfuscator and DAX Optimizer – Unplugged #57]( From SQLBI Learn how to use the new Vpax obfuscator to send anonymized VPAX files to DAX Optimizer. Read more: [Model Optimization: Available In MDX Property]( From Simple Talk Power BI Semantic Models have a property called Available In MDX. Each field in the model has this property and we can only see or change its value through... Microsoft Fabric ( Azure Synapse Analytics, OneLake, ADLS, Data Science) [Build Your Feature Engineering System on AML Managed Feature Store and Microsoft Fabric]( From Microsoft Azure Blog Feature engineering is the process of using domain knowledge to extract features (characteristics, properties, attributes) from raw data. The extracted features are used for training the models that can predict values for relevant business scenarios. A feature engineering system provides the tools, processes, and techniques used to perform feature engineering consistently and efficiently. [Scripts to improve copying a Direct Lake semantic model to another workspace using Microsoft Fabric Git integration locally]( From Kevin Chant Reading Time: 5 minutes In this post I introduce ... [Change Notebook Spark Session Time-Out in Microsoft Fabric]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs You might know the feeling: you’re writing code ... [How Much Does Copilot Cost In Microsoft Fabric?]( From Chris Webb's BI Blog There’s a lot of excitement about Copilot in Power BI and in Fabric as a whole. The number one question I’m asked about Copilot by customers is “How much... Oracle/PostgreSQL/MySQL/other RDBMS [WILL POSTGRESQL EVER CHANGE ITS LICENSE?]( I was very sad to learn today that the Redis project will no longer be released under an open source license. Sad for two reasons: as a longtime Redis user and pretty early adopter, and as an open source contributor. [Jeremy Schneider: Major Developments in Postgres Extension Discovery and Distribution]( From Planet Postgres PostgreSQL “extensions” are a big part of what makes this database special. The developers building the core Postgres database are amazing. But many people don’t realize just how... [semab tariq: PostgreSQL Internals Part 2: Understanding Page Structure]( From Planet Postgres Explore intricacies of PostgreSQL's internal page structure and how pages are organized, their default size, and more. The post PostgreSQL Internals Part 2: Understanding Page Structure appeared first... 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Performance Tuning SQL Server [Fixing Parallel Row Skew With TOP In SQL Server (With A Brief Re-Complaint About CXCONSUMER Waits)]( From Erik Darling Data Fixing Parallel Row Skew With TOP In SQL Server (With A Brief Re-Complaint About CXCONSUMER Waits) Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love... [A Little About SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD Waits In SQL Server]( From Erik Darling Data A Little About SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD Waits In SQL Server Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering... [Lesson Learned #481: Query Performance Analysis Tips]( From Azure Database Support Blog When working with databases, high resource usage or a query reporting a timeout could indicate that the statistics of the tables involved in the query are not up to... PowerPivot/PowerQuery/PowerBI [Decoding Direct Lake: The Truth Behind DirectQuery Fallback]( From Guy in a Cube Direct Lake in Power BI could possibly fall back t... 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[Reviewing The New DACPAC Code Analysis Rules For T-SQL]( From Erik Darling Data Reviewing The New DACPAC Code Analysis Rules For T-SQL You can read the announcement post here. Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love... [Introducing Tableflow]( We’re excited to talk about our vision for Tableflow, which makes it push-button simple to take Apache Kafka® data and feed it directly into your data lake, warehouse, or analytics engine as Apache Iceberg® tables. [SQL Compare Force Column Order in a Table]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs I had a client that was concerned about SQL Compare behavior when a developer adds a column to the middle of a table. I wanted to reassure them, so... The... [What Does Redgate Test Data Manager Do?]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs At the PASS Data Community Summit in 2024, Redgate launched Test Data Manager (TDM), which was a new product for us. You can watch the video linked above to... The... Product Upgrades and Releases [Public Preview: Next generation of general purpose service tier for Azure SQL Managed Instance]( From Azure Updates The next generation of general purpose service tie... [SQL Server 2022 Cumulative Update 12]( From Glenn Berry On March 14, 2024, Microsoft released SQL Server 2022 Cumulative Update 12. This is Build 16.0.4115.5. By Microsoft’s count, there are 50 public fixes and improvements in this CU,... R Language [A Guide to Using the cut() Function in R]( In the realm of data analysis, understanding how to effectively segment your data is paramount. Whether you’re dealing with age groups, income brackets, or any other continuous variable, the ability to categorize your data can provide invaluable insights. In R, the cut() function is a powerful tool for precisely this purpose. In this guide, we’ll explore how to harness the full potential of cut() to slice and dice your data with ease. [ggbrick is now on CRAN]( If you’re looking for something a little different, ggbrick creates a ‘waffle’ style chart with the aesthetic of a brick wall. The usage is similar to geom_col where you supply counts as the height of the bar and a fill for a stacked bar. Each whole brick represents 1 unit. Two half bricks equal one whole brick. [Update on mocking for testing R packages]( This blog featured a post on mocking, the art of replacing a function with whatever fake we need for testing, years ago. Since then, we’ve entered a new decade, the second edition of Hadley Wickham’s and Jenny Bryan’s R packages book was published, and mocking returned to testthat, so it’s time for a new take/resources roundup! [How to Replicate Rows in a Data Frame in R]( Are you working with a dataset where you need to duplicate certain rows multiple times? Perhaps you want to create synthetic data by replicating existing observations, or you need to handle imbalanced data by oversampling minority classes. Whatever the reason, replicating rows in a data frame is a handy skill to have in your R programming toolkit. SQL Server on Linux [Enhancing Security with EKM using Azure Key Vault in SQL Server on Linux:]( We’re excited to announce that Extensible Key Management (EKM) using Azure Key Vault in SQL Server on Linux is now generally available from SQL Server 2022 CU12 onwards, which allows you to manage encryption keys outside of SQL Server using Azure Key Vaults. [Enabling Azure Key Vault for SQL Server on Linux]( From MS SQL Server Blog Enhancing Security with EKM using Azure Key Vault in SQL Server on Linux:  We’re excited to announce that Extensible Key Management (EKM) using Azure Key Vault in SQL Server on... Security News and Issues [Google Pays $10M in Bug Bounties in 2023]( From Schneier on Security BleepingComputer has the details. It’s $2M less than in 2022, but it’s still a lot. The highest reward for a vulnerability report in 2023 was $113,337, while the total tally... [Inside the Massive Alleged AT&T Data Breach]( From Troy Hunt's Blog I hate having to use that word - "alleged" - becau... Software Development [Lesson Learned #480:Navigating Query Cancellations with Azure SQL Database]( From Azure Database Support Blog In a recent support case, our customer faced an intriguing issue where a query execution in a .NET application was unexpectedly canceled during asynchronous operations against Azure SQL Database.... T-SQL and Query Languages [How to Get SQL Percentage Calculation as Easy as Pie]( Percentage calculation in SQL can be a bit like traversing an unfamiliar labyrinth. If you’re a beginner, it’s easy to get lost in a maze of numbers and functions. You may stumble over pitfalls that can lead to incorrect results. But fear not because we’re about to make SQL percentage calculations as easy as pie! [Refreshing Views]( From Callihan Data I recently encountered a question related to views... [Introducing Regular Expression (Regex) Support in Azure SQL DB]( From Azure SQL We are pleased to announce the private preview of regular expressions (regex) support in Azure SQL Database. Regex is a powerful tool that allows you to search, manipulate, and... [Does Your GROUP BY Order Matter?]( From Brent Ozar Unlimited Sometimes when you do GROUP BY, the order of the columns does matter. For example, these two SELECT queries produce different results: [crayon-65fb165a4173b420702082/] Their actual execution plans are wildly... [Securing Dynamic SQL with QUOTENAME]( From Andy Broadsword I’m a big fan of dynamic SQL in the right conditions. One key to crafting safe dynamic query of the use of the QUOTENAME function. The issue Using dynamic... [Understanding the SQL IN operator with examples]( From SQLShack Today we will learn about the SQL IN operator. The RDBMS systems are very popular today in terms of data storage, data security, and data analysis. SQL stands for... [The How To Write SQL Server Queries Correctly Cheat Sheet: Views vs. Inline User Defined Functions]( From Erik Darling Data Making Plans For Nigel Views get a somewhat bad rap from performance tuners, but… It’s not because views are inherently bad. It’s just that we’ve seen things. Horrible things.... Tech News [IT Careers: Does Skills-Based Hiring Really Work?]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools More organizations are moving toward skills-based hiring and getting mixed results. Here’s how to avoid some of the pitfalls. [Invisible Downtime: The New Measure of Application Performance]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Observability over the entire application estate expands the concept of downtime to encompass secure, exceptional, performant digital experiences. [Digital Workplace I&O Leaders Must Prioritize DEI Initiatives]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools It's imperative that I&O leaders overseeing the digital workplace choose technology that strengthens organization-wide DEI efforts. The Lighter Side [A New Word: Rubatosis]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs rubatosis– n. the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, as... The... Tools for Dev (SSMS, ADS, VS, etc.) [Upcoming changes for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) - Part 3]( From MS SQL Server Blog Hey all! This is the final post in a series of three covering SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), and we are happy to announce that SSMS 20 is now...  [RSS Feed]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. To be removed from this list, please click [here](. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. 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