Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 11: Function / Iterator Function Pairs: The DAX Concatenate() and ConcatenateX() Functions (2021-08-18)

SQLServerCentral Newsletter for August 18, 2021 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [SQL Server Central]( Featured Contents - [Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 11: Function / Iterator Function Pairs: The DAX Concatenate() and ConcatenateX() Functions]( - [Microsoft at PASS Data Community Summit 2021]( - [Improving performance with instant file initialization]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Updating SQL Server container memory limits on the fly]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - SQL Homework – August 2021 – Security Standards]( Question of the Day - [Training a Random Forest Model]( The Voice of the DBA  Daily Coping Tip Contact a friend to let them know you’re thinking of them I also have [a thread at SQLServerCentral]( dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate. For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from [The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar](. My items will be on [my blog](, feel free to share yours. Better SQL is a Good Career Investment Many of us reading this are data professionals, and we likely know quite a bit about SQL in general. We may use T-SQL, specifically, with SQL Server, but many of the skills we have would be portable to other dialects, such as those use in Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc. We'd certainly need to brush up on best practices and which language constructs are better suited for a specific platform, but most of the knowledge transfers. I ran across [an interesting post on the value of SQL]( in a career, mostly for someone that might be moving into the data science or machine learning/AI type role. The post notes that lots of these job descriptions mention SQL, but focus quite a bit on R, Python, modeling, etc. In this case, SQL matters, and I'd agree with the author that it matters a lot. Most of the work in those fields is data prep, and SQL makes this much easier at scale than other languages. What about those of us that have been working with SQL Server (or some other platform) for awhile? Is learning more about SQL a good investment in our career? In most cases, does our boss even know if we have mediocre or amazing T-SQL skills? Do they care? They may not, but I think they may care, and more importantly, you may care. When you know more about the language and how to structure queries to solve problems, you'll work quicker. You will write code that performs better, resulting in a lower workload on the instances. Your code will last longer, have fewer bugs, and co-workers will trust your work. The more you practice with code, the more you solve new problems and learn what works well and what doesn't, the better you will be at your job. The time you put into learning to write better queries will pay back with less stress and more time for other tasks. While your boss might not notice your code is better, they certainly will see you as more capable, relaxed, and trustworthy. All good impressions to make at review time. Steve Jones - SSC Editor [Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums](   Featured Contents [Stairway to DAX and Power BI]( [Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 11: Function / Iterator Function Pairs: The DAX Concatenate() and ConcatenateX() Functions]( Bill Pearson from SQLServerCentral.com Continuing his examination of the evolving DAX “Function / Iterator Pairs,” Business Intelligence Architect, Analysis Services Maestro, Microsoft Data Platform MVP and author Bill Pearson introduces the DAX Concatenate() and ConcatenateX() functions, discussing the syntax, uses and operation of each. He then provides hands-on exposure to Concatenate() and ConcatenateX(), in joining two text strings into a single text string, and in returning the concatenation of an expression evaluated for each row in a table, respectively. [Microsoft at PASS Data Community Summit 2021]( Additional Articles from Redgate We're thrilled to welcome Microsoft as the Premier Sponsor at this year's PASS Data Community Summit. The Microsoft team will be a fundamental part of the conference program and activities through educational sessions, product deep-dives and announcements, Microsoft-focused workshops, keynotes, and more. We're excited to continue this relationship in support of the global data community. [Improving performance with instant file initialization]( Additional Articles from SimpleTalk Instant file initialization can speed up database creation, file growth, and restores. Greg Larsen explains how to configure it and how it works. From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [Updating SQL Server container memory limits on the fly]( dbafromthecold@gmail.com from The DBA Who Came In From The Cold When running multiple SQL Server containers on a Docker host we should always be setting CPU and Memory limits for each container (see the flags for memory and cpus... From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [SQL Homework – August 2021 – Security Standards]( Kenneth.Fisher from SQLStudies A few years back (wow time flies) I had you Work with Security. It’s been a while so if you ... Continue reading   Question of the Day Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):  Training a Random Forest Model I have a data set, m, in R Studio. This is my complete data set, both for training and testing. I want to train this using a random forest algorithm. What is the first thing I should do? Think you know the answer? [Click here]( and find out if you are right.    Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor) Azure Storage Redundancy Cost Savings Which type of Azure Storage redundancy is the cheapest option from a cost standpoint? Answer: Locally redundant storage (LRS) Explanation: LRS is the cheapest option. Ref: - Azure Storage: Blob and Data Lake Storage Gen2 - - Azure Storage Redundancy -  [Discuss this question and answer on the forums](    Database Pros Who Need Your Help Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, [visit the forums](. --------------------------------------------------------------- SQL Server 2017 - Administration [How to find who restarted SQL services]( - Looking to find the login information who started the SQL Server service. However, this is what I found in the log. Does this mean SQL Service may not have been restarted by a person, but rather was some service? Event Type: Information Event Source: Service Control Manager Event Category: None Event ID: 7036 Date: 8/10/2021 […] [Cluster Node show quarantine]( - One of the node in Availability group was showing in quarantined state. I have ran clearQuarantine but it was occurring again. Later found that it could be related to NIC card which was enabled for backup. Would that be the cause of issue? Also, we are seeing timing out with listener from application randomly. Is […] [CPU Alert when usage is constantly high]( - Hello, I am looking to create a SQL Server Alert; which notifies me only when the CPU usage is constantly above 75% for the last 10 minutes. Can someone please help? Thanks in advance [How do I produce the relationship diagram in Microsoft Sql Server?]( - How do I produce the relationship diagram in Microsoft Sql Server? Here is a visual of what I am talking about here:   [CU installation in sql 2017]( - I have SQL 2017 with CU14 (14.0.3103)installed and when i try to install CU25 my DB engine is not recognized. What could be the cause and how to fix it. I have default instance and reporting services (14.0.600.1763) installed .  SQL Server 2017 - Development [WEB SERVICE DATA RECEPTION]( - Hello, I am able to get data from web service with Excel VBA Code : Sub LOGIN() Dim Movie As Object Dim scriptControl As Object Set scriptControl = CreateObject("MSScriptControl.ScriptControl") scriptControl.Language = "JScript" With CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP") .Open "POST", "https:....../json", False sEnv = "{""login"" : " sEnv = sEnv & vbLf & " { ""username"" : ".....", " […] SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL [automating an export]( - Hello, I'm having an issue with Creating an export job. It says that it runs successfully, but when I check the file it creates there is nothing. When I export with the same command using the Export wizard, it works just fine. When I save that exact command as an SSIS package, it says it […] SQL 2012 - General [Regarding the issues of Index and data storage]( - I don't know how the basic knowledges about data storage and index structure?index storage, my questions as below, thank you for knidly help! (there is an example in the attached file) how the data is stored while without any index? ( you can give me some posts about the theory of data storage and index […] SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL [Reminde me - I wish to write a string including [ ] as part of the text, ???]( - Hi, DECLARE @test VARCHAR SET @test = '[Copy]-' Select @test + 'SomeName' I want ... [Copy]- SomeName But I get [SomeName Please remind me, I have tried / and \ with no luck  SQL Server 2019 - Administration [Management data warehouse ( MDW ) SQL Authentication]( - Hello, I have questions about MDW. I would like to collect data from more domain, but I have problem that there is not possible set with SQL USER and only domain user. I have -MDWServer in Doman1 -Server1 in Domain1 -Server2 in Domain2 On Server1 is not possible problem to set and collect something ( […] SQL Server 2019 - Development [Create New Table - Count Columns]( - Hi all,  I am new to writing SQL code and am wondering the best way to create a new table from an existing table that has count columns as shown below  Existing Table: [candidateref] [candidate postcode]   Required Table   Thank you,  HPBI [Customers count on first of the month report]( - Hi all! I'm a t-sql beginner and have to generate a report as it follows: First_of_Month | Customers Count 2020-01-01          100 2020-02-01          180 ........... 2021-01-01           379 ........... 2021-08-01 […] General Cloud Computing Questions [Architecture Strategy Cosmos db / Power BI]( - Hello All, I’m looking at any ideas to strategize a new data architecture for our company. For the past 15 years we have worked with a On Premise application that uses a t-sql database. We used SSRS for ad hoc reporting and would extract data from each customer database into our servers for transformation into […] Reporting Services [How to INVOKE RSCONFIG command]( - Simple question: In a batch mode, where do I run this command for the RSConfig utility? rsconfig -e -u -p -t Because we have over 50 SQL Servers running Reporting Services using the Unattended Execution Account AND our Domain\Account PWD's expire every 90 days, we'd like to automate the running of this command […] Integration Services [Email Notification in Script Task not working from SSMS]( - I have a package deployed to the Integration Services Catalogs and it's working well. In Visual Studio I edited my package to use a Script Task to produce an email notification. This runs fine in debug but when I re-deploy my package, everything works well still except the email script is not running when the […]   [RSS Feed]([Twitter]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. 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