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The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News by SQLServerCentral.com
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Editorial
 The Birth of Computing Was the Birth of Testing Last year I had the most wonderful opportunity. I took part in [Data Relay]( an event in the UK which tours several cities. Wonderful time, but not the focus here. The very first one was held at the [National Museum of Computing]( at Bletchley Park. Without a doubt, you've heard of Alan Turing, Enigma, and his work on the Bombe, an electro-mechanical calculation engine. What you may not have heard of, I sure hadn't, was Colossus, the very first electronic, not mechanical, pure electronic, computer created by Tommy Flowers, a postal worker you probably have never heard of. It's an amazing story, well told there at Bletchley Park. They even have a recreated, fully functional, Colossus there. I strongly recommend you go if you get the opportunity. The secret wasn't even released until 1999, which is incredible. After a lot of research, I picked up a book on the topic, [Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret](. It has been an amazing read and I recommend this as well. I think the most interesting part of it is not simply how these people built the very first computer, but how they also figured out all the steps in processing that we, sort of, take for granted today. One of the most eye-opening things in the book was the discovery of how important testing and validation was at every step. When they started out, the assumption was, well, of course all the calculations will be correct, it's done by machine after all. Yet, they hadn't run into GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out), but they did. The concept of a bug didn't yet exist, but they found them. PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair), also known as operator error, was also not yet a thing, but it's something they found nonetheless. In short, the need for thorough and ongoing testing and validation was cooked into the pie right from the start. And yet, we still, to this day, have a tendency to be dismissive, or least forgetful, about testing and validation. So, take a lesson from our forefathers & mothers. Set up testing and validation as a fundamental aspect of all your computing needs. It's been there from the beginning and I sure don't see any signs that the need for testing is going away. PS: Before I let you go and not drop a radio reference, in addition to computing, decryption and the rest, the [UK home to amateur radio]( is also located in Bletchley Park. Grant Fritchey [Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums]( Â
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.
Vendors/3rd Party Products [âShould we be worried about our jobs because of AI?â and other career questions]( At our recent livestream to launch the State of the Database Landscape survey results, there were lots of questions from the live audience about data careers in 2024 and beyond. Here are the responses from the livestream speakers: Steve Jones and Ryan Booz (Redgate Advocates) and Beca Parker (Software Engineer). [Passing Parameters and Settings to Flyway Scripts]( This article explains the various ways of using placeholders to pass information and settings to any Flyway script, to gain bit of extra flexibility in a migration run., providing examples of conditional execution, running SQL expressions using environment variables and even one of using placeholders in a callback to send a warning notification to your phone, after a migration completes. [Managing Test Datasets for a Database: Whatâs Required?]( The management of datasets is intrinsic to effective team-based database development. This article reviews what's required of test datasets in database development and then proposes a system of managing them in a migration-based approach that adopts a common standard for their storage, using JSON. AI/Machine Learning/Cognitive Services [Microsoft and AI: What Is the Copilot Semantic Index and How Does It Work?]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase Microsoft recently announced that it is taking a s... [Coders and Analysts Feel AI's Breath on Their Necks]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Nobody's really ready for how automation could upend white-collar drudgery. [From Labs to Leaders: 2024âs Generative AI Predictions for Industry Champions]( From Dataversity In the past year, we have witnessed the explosive emergence of generative AI (GenAI) use cases. Its potential to revolutionize how businesses analyze, create, and compete is undeniable, but... [AI Is Driving More Layoffs Than Companies Want to Admit]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools By one tracker, US firms have announced 4,600 job cuts since May related to artificial intelligence. Administration of SQL Server [Getting Started With SQL Server Always Encrypted]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2016 introduced ... [Add Additional Nodes to SQL Server 2022 and Windows Server 2022 Failover Cluster - Part 3]( From MSSQL Tips In this third article of the series on building a ... [Video: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances on Linux]( From 36 Chambers â The Legendary Journeys THE VIDEO THE SYNOPSIS In this video, we will talk... [Finding Duplicates in SQL]( From SQLShack This article will provide an understanding of iden... [SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for February 2024]( From Glenn Berry Introduction These are my SQL Server Diagnostic In... [Hands-free tempdb | SQL Server 2022 Hidden Gems | Data Exposed]( From Azure SQL Join us in the next episode of SQL Server 2022 Hidden Gems to dive into hands-free tempdb.  Watch on Data Exposed  Resources: What's new in SQL Server 2022 - SQL Server |...
Azure Databricks, Spark and Snowflake [Implementing functions and more fun in Spark Connect using gRPC and .NET]( From AgileSQL - Ed Elliot All Spark Connect Posts Code Goal of this post The goal of this post is to look at creating a SparkSession and a DataFrame that will wrap the Range relation and... Azure SQL Managed Instance [Provision a Free Azure SQL Managed Instance Step by Step]( From MSSQL Tips This article walks through each step of provisioni... Cloud - AWS [AWS named as a Leader in 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Cloud Platform Services for thirteenth year in a row]( From AWS News Blog On December 4, 2023, AWS was named as a Leader in ... [AWS Weekly Roundup â Amazon Q in AWS Glue, Amazon PartyRock Hackathon, CDK Migrate, and more â February 5, 2024]( From AWS News Blog With all the generative AI announcements at AWS re... Cloud - Azure [Mount Azure Storage as a local share in App Service Linux Now supports NFS]( From Azure Updates NFS support is now available for App Service Linu... [Microsoft, Amazon-Backed Cloud Body in Talks Over EU Dispute]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools CISPE said it wants to make "substantive progress" on the cloud software licensing dispute this quarter. Conferences, Classes, Events, and Webinars [Summit 2024 Community Insights Survey]( Take part in our survey, and your input will ensure Summit delivers the most relevant topics and speakers to the data community. Youâll have the chance to opt-into a prize draw to win a free 3-day pass to Summit 2024! The survey closes February 19. [Redgate Summit: The Database Landscape]( A series of Redgate events across the globe for data professionals who want to improve their skills and knowledge about Database DevOps, learn about moving to the Cloud, AI, and working across multiple databases. Redgate Summit aims to bring together database professionals who want to level-up their skills to navigate the increasingly complex database landscape. Learn more about emergent technologies, and reliably solve the complex challenges of database management across the entire DevOps lifecycle. Each event will all feature three separate tracks covering New and Future Technologies, Deep Dive Solutions, and Leadership, all promising to equip senior database professionals with the tools and insights needed to navigate the intricate landscape of 2024. Who Should Attend This event is tailored for database professionals at every level who are keen on staying ahead of the curve in the dynamic world of DevOps. Whether you're an end-user looking to level up your skills, a technical enthusiast eager to dive into advanced solutions, or a senior decision-maker steering strategic initiatives, Redgate Summit is your gateway to staying informed and empowered in the rapidly evolving field of Database DevOps. DMO/SMO/Powershell [Automating BCP with PowerShell]( From Simple Talk I was talking with a good friend that has an environment with terabytes of information and to create a homolog or dev environment to him is a pain. He... Data Science [Dataâs Chess Game: Strategic Moves in Data Modeling for Competitive Advantage]( From Dataversity Having been an avid chess player for years, I find... DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) [The DevOps Airways Roadshow]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs I love this logo. Our marketing people were very c... [Security Justifications for Infrastructure as Code (IaC)]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs Last week, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure ... [Tap Into the Potential of Synthetic Data for AIOps]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Here's how synthetic data can help when developing... [Why Many ITOps Teams Must Also Take On Cybersecurity Tasks]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Here's why detecting and managing cybersecurity threats is often a task that falls to ITOps engineers rather than a dedicated SecOps team. [Companies Racing to Implement Automation in IT Operations in 2024]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Enterprise IT incidents are on the rise as digital transformation, automation, and AI efforts ramp up, PagerDuty's State of Digital Operations 2024 report finds. Hardware [Building an Effective Data Strategy for Edge Deployments]( From Dataversity Data analytics and integration are the key components of building a data strategy. For organizations to have an effective data strategy, it requires the definition of measurable metrics and... Microsoft Fabric ( Azure Synapse Analytics, OneLake, ADLS, Data Science) [Is Azure Synapse Analytics Dead and Does It Really Matter?]( From Paul Andrew The product vs the capabilities I think itâs fai... [Adding a column to your Lakehouse? Where is it in the Semantic Model???]( From Guy in a Cube When you add a column to your lakehouse in Microso... [How to calculate Microsoft Fabric costs]( From FourMoo I was going to update my existing blog post with regards to the fabric costs. I was then fortunate to be contacted by David Brown from the Microsoft Fabric... [Microsoft Fabric: Automating Fabric Capacity Scaling with Azure Logic Apps]( From BI Insight In a previous post I explained how to manage the capacity costs of a Fabric F capacity (under Pay-As-You-Go pricing model) using Logic Apps to Suspend and Resume it.... Oracle/PostgreSQL/MySQL/other RDBMS [Lætitia AVROT: PGSQL Phriday #015: Primary keys: UUID, CUID, or TSID?]( From Planet Postgres This monthâs PGSQLPhriday event is about UUId th... [Pavel Stehule: new extension pgmeminfo]( From Planet Postgres I wrote very simple extension pgmeminfo for PostgreSQL12+, that should to help with investigation of memory usage by Postgres. Function pgmeminfo returns glibc information about memory usage provided by... [Karen Jex: Learning about "transqlate" at PG Session 16]( From Planet Postgres After the craziness of the FOSDEM weekend in Brussels (FOSDEM PGDay, and the PostgreSQL booth and Devroom at FOSDEM itself) I headed to Paris for PG Session 16 on... [Adrien Nayrat: Postgres again elected DBMS of the Year in 2023, but I'm worried]( From Planet Postgres Once again, Postgres has been elected DBMS of the ... [Luca Ferrari: Changing a Column from Integer to Boolean in One Transaction]( From Planet Postgres A way to fix some oddity that comes from other dat... [Luca Ferrari: pgenv gains a new command (and contributor!)]( From Planet Postgres A new command in the pgenv script. pgenv gains... [Andreas Scherbaum: PostgreSQL February Meetup in Berlin]( From Planet Postgres On February 6th, 2024, we had the PostgreSQL February Meetup in Berlin. [David Rowley: Whatâs new in the Postgres 16 query planner / optimizer]( From Planet Postgres PostgreSQL 16 introduces quite a few improvements to the query planner and makes many SQL queries run faster than they did on previous versions of PostgreSQL. If you... Performance Tuning SQL Server [SQL Server Clustered Index Seek Operation Generates Poor Query Performance]( From MSSQL Tips In this article, we look at why a SQL Server clust... [How Effective Indexing Can Avoid Blocking]( From Andy Broadsword Blocking in SQL Server will reduce throughput. Exc... [Latches and Locks Are Not the Same]( From Callihan Data You may hear or read about locks and latches and assume these terms are being used interchangeably. After all, if you search for synonyms for the word âlockâ, youâll... [Query Exercise: Improving Cardinality Estimation]( From Brent Ozar Unlimited Your challenge for this week is to tune a query. Say Stack Overflow has a dashboard that shows the top-ranking users in their most popular location. Itâs even got... [What Happens To Queries With Recompile Hints In Query Store]( From Erik Darling Data Worst Behavior For many SQL Server developers, using statement-level OPTION(RECOMPILE) hints is the path of least resistance for tuning parameter sensitive queries. And Iâm okay with that, for the... [Indexing SQL Server Queries For Performance: Fixing Aggregates With An Indexed View]( From Erik Darling Data Lead Up I have a couple posts scheduled next week about aggregates, so now is a good time to continue my series on how you, my dear, sweet, developers,... PowerPivot/PowerQuery/PowerBI [Getting Started With Microsoft PowerToys]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Microsoft PowerToys offers a practical set of tool... [Dynamically Create Tables in Power BI with DAX Functions]( From MSSQL Tips Learn about various DAX functions to dynamically c... [Copy a report page from one Power BI Desktop file to another]( From MARTIN'S BLOG The proprietary storage format of Power BI Desktop... [Power BI performance tuning â whatâs in the course?]( From SQLGene â Learning SQL Slowly My course on performance tuning is live and you ca... [Extracting Azure Analysis Services Metrics from your Log Analytics workspace into PowerBI]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs We have numerous Azure Analysis Services servers r... [Know Thyself: Power BI Source Control]( From Prologika (Teo Lachev's Weblog) Last year my wife and I did a tour of Greece, and we had a blast. Greece, of course, is the place to go if you are interested in... [Why canât I edit my Power BI semantic model?]( From Guy in a Cube Wait!?! I need to adjust some properties in my Pow... [(Livestream Replay) Power BI Workout Wednesday LIVE! - with Shannon Lindsay]( From Havens Consulting DESCRIPTION Join us to complete a Workout Wednesday challenge together! Weâll review the challenge, provide all the resources you need, and build a report live with you! Bring any... Professional Development [The Cool Kids Corner: CLEAR CommunicationÂ]( From Dataversity Hello! Iâm Mark Horseman, and welcome to The Coo... [âAs DBAs, should we be worried about our jobs because of AI?â and other burning questions]( From Blog â Redgate Software We recently launched the State of the Database Lan... [Tech Layoffs Continue to Roil Industry With 32,000 Jobs Cut]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Reductions in 2024 are seen as reaction to the pan... [The Power of Contribution: Why Creating Content Matters in the Data Community]( From Purple Frog Systems Many people, including me up until a year or so ag... [How to Build a Team of Talented Citizen Developers]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Skilled citizen developers donât just suddenly appear. They require training and encouragement. [Trying to make your business resilient? Here are 5 myths (and truths) about how resilience really works]( From AllAnalytics If your organization aims for longevity, resilience is a muscle you want to build. The 5 Resiliency Rules: Speed and agility Data culture and literacy Curiosity Innovation Equity and... [My data architecture book is published!]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs Iâm thrilled to share that after 15 months of dedicated effort, my book, âDeciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh,â... The... [Planning, the First Step To Failure]( From Simple Talk You probably have heard the saying âif you fail to plan, you plan to failâ. I get the sentiment here, when you have a task to do, if you... Security News and Issues [Click with Caution: Navigating New Cybersecurity Regulations and Consumer Rights]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools The combination of compulsory and voluntary measur... [Documents about the NSAâs Banning of Furby Toys in the 1990s]( From Schneier on Security Via a FOIA request, we have documents from the NSA... [On Software Liabilities]( From Schneier on Security Over on Lawfare, Jim Dempsey published a really interesting proposal for software liability: âStandard for Software Liability: Focus on the Product for Liability, Focus on the Process for Safe... T-SQL and Query Languages [Strategies for queries against bit columns]( Recently someone posted a question where they couldnât quite figure out how to construct a predicate based on a bit parameter. I explained that you canât have control-of-flow inside a SQL statement like that, at least not in T-SQL. [Using the T-SQL Error Functionsâ#SQLNewBlogger]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs I was working with a customer that was doing some ... [T-SQL Error Functions]( From Curated SQL Steve Jones shows ERROR_MESSAGE()âs extended family: I was working with a customer that was doing some error handling in procs and helped them do some⦠Tech News [Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small]( From Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories For half a century, climate researchers have consi... [Advanced solar panels still need to pass the test of time]( From Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Reviewâs weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. It must be tough to be... [Why engineers are working to build better pulse oximeters]( From Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Reviewâs weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.... Testing Software [Testing Your Code Using the [DAX] Query View!]( From Havens Consulting Video by: Reid HavensSee some examples on how to l... [Managing Test Datasets for a Database: Whatâs Required?]( From Product learning â Redgate Software The management of datasets is intrinsic to effective team-based database development. This article reviews what's required of test datasets in database development and then proposes a system of managing... Virtualization and Containers/Kubernetes [Docker Security Principles Overview]( Docker is an open-source platform that enables developers to automate the deployment and management of applications using containerization. It was created by Solomon Hykes and his team at Docker, Inc., and was first released in 2013. Docker allows developers to package their applications and their dependencies into lightweight, portable containers that can run consistently across different computing environments. Docker introduced a new level of efficiency in application deployment by leveraging containerization technology. [Are RAM Disks a Viable Option for Hosting Hyper-V Virtual Machines?]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools RAM disks provide a potential storage solution for Hyper-V VMs. Learn about the pros and cons of hosting Hyper-V VMs on RAM disks. Web [Making Accessibility Part of the Design Process â Part 1]( In a world that thrives on connectivity and progress, the concept of accessibility has emerged as a fundamental bridge that connects diverse individuals to a shared digital landscape. Accessibility goes beyond mere convenience; it embodies the principles of equity and inclusion, ensuring that information, activities, and environments are not only usable but also beneficial to everyone. 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