SQL Data Partners Podcast

Part 1 Power BI has been described as a "self-service" BI platform. While that may bring to mind an image of easy-peasy, plug-and-play, there are a few things most organizations will want to address before turning users loose with Power BI. In this conversation, Brandon Michals helps us take a look at three areas of consideration: your company, your people, and your data. Spending the time to think through and take the appropriate action in each of these areas will go a long way towards helping your organization achieve a successful Power BI implementation. The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/12/01/episodes-237-and-238-getting-started-with-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Building your own scripts to monitor SQL Server seems like a very reasonable thing to do. We're smart folks and SQL Server is what we do for a living—we should be able to figure this out. Upon further inspection, we found it was easier for us to focus on what we do—database administration, and let the developers focus on what they do—build software. This episode explores our choice of SolarWinds SQL Sentry as the monitoring standard for SQL Data Partners. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/11/17/episode-236-database-monitoring-with-sql-sentry. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Live Podcast! We decided it was time to try and get together in person and reconnect. As we did, we pulled out the microphone and started recording. As a result, we break the single topic mode this week and opened it up for a Q&A session. We touch on database monitoring, memory grants, what we miss about being in an office, and even SharePoint (Gasp!). The show notes for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/11/03/episode-235-sql-trail-2021-in-person-qa. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As a data pro, you are negotiating and problem-solving all the time, often without knowing it. Your success as a professional as your company evolves its Data Platform depends on how well you can communicate and influence. It's a scary thought, but your ability to negotiate with the business directly often determines if your projects get funded. Those skills are arguably as important as your T-SQL. In this episode, we chat with Blythe Morrow about strategies you can incorporate to better communicate with those around you. The show notes for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/10/06/episode-234-communication-tips-for-the-it-pro/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Never heard of ScriptDOM? Neither had we…okay, except Kevin, who obviously knows all. Apparently, the documentation is scarce. Mala Mahadevan uses it, loves it, and graciously offered to come back to the podcast to educate us and our listeners on a product that can help us parse, process and format our SQL queries. The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/09/15/episode-233-scriptdom. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Public speaking is not fun for most; however, it can be very rewarding. Chris Seferlis chats with us about a few tips he has on being a speaker. Most of the tactical advice we defer to a toastmasters or public speaking group, so we give some thoughts on preparation, soliciting feedback, audience engagement, and handling criticism. I should point out that public speaking is WAY different from recording videos. We hope you find the information useful. Did we miss anything? Let us know! The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/09/01/episode-232-giving-technical-presentations. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Everyone has bad days; however, how those bad days develop are unique to each of us. In a special episode, we chat with Tracy Boggiano about her experiences with Mental Health, how she has dealt with it, how each of us can work on our own mental health, and phrases we should avoid saying to those with mental health issues. Our own Eugene Meidinger shares a story on negative thinking and how damaging it can be. We hope this conversation will help foster ideas on how you can feel more comfortable talking about Mental Health and making it easier for those who struggle. One of the core principles at SQL Data Partners is to "Act in a way that expresses care, hope, love, and joy". As we talked during the episode, I was struck by how this principle is correlated to mental health. I had not made the connection before. While we may not be able to solve other problems, we can show support by expressing care, hope, love, and joy. If we can foster these environments, it will make it easier to get through our own bad day when they happen. The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/08/11/episode-231-mental-health-and-wellness-in-it. Take care of yourself on the SQL Trail!

No one wants to lose data when disaster strikes; however, we need to plan for some data loss and putting all the pieces in place can be tricky. There are two metrics commonly used to measure data loss and availability when it comes to planning for disasters—Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective. In this episode, we touch on how you might come up with these metrics, how to consider the implementation cost, and how you might go about walking through a disaster situation to test your plan. The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/08/04/episode-230-rto-rpo. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The scary part of upgrading SQL Server is finding out you have a problem AFTER the fact. In this episode, Mariano Kovo joins us to discuss the Data Migration Assistant tool from Microsoft. While the name can be a bit misleading, (What? Microsoft have confusing names—that's a first), the major benefit to the tool is the assessment feature to alert you of potential issues when you upgrade. Issues are broken into three major categories: Breaking Changes Behavior Changes Deprecated Changes While each change should be reviewed, many times we allow deprecated features to remain unresolved as they are still supported in SQL Server; however, we certainly want to put those on the backlog because one day Microsoft will finally pull the plug and we want to be ahead of the curve. You can find the show notes and video for today's episode at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/07/21/episode-229-data-migration-assistant. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As data practitioners, we want to get ahead of any problems that might come up and share those insights with others on our team. In this episode, Edward Pollack gives us a few scenarios we might consider as we attempt to prevent application issues. These techniques also go into the security space and could help prevent data loss. As we collect this information and make it available to others, we can also demonstrate the ROI we provide to the organization. You can find the show notes and video for this episode at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/07/14/episode-228-predicting-application-problems-with-database-metrics. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Organizations look to constantly improve and offer better services and the application tooling has been built to accommodate the process. Database tooling has been a bit slower to develop; however, in this episode Eitan Blumin, a co-host at sqlserverradio.com, brings us up to speed on the latest features of SQL Server Data Tools with some thoughts on how to get started with continual deployment or 'devops'. We know this can feel like a steep learning curve for folks without a programming background and we share a few resources for you to get started. The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/06/23/episode-227-ssdt-methodologies-for-db-devops/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Let's say you have completed a lift and shift VM hosting to the cloud. Great—you now use Iaas services. While you don't have to worry about the hardware, managing the software can be problematic. The SQL Server IaaS Agent Extension can offer some PaaS-like services and make it easier to manage the database environment. In this episode we chat with Ameena Lalani from Microsoft about this feature, why you might want to enable it, the prerequisites, and the downsides. She also shares her daily guilty pleasure and Kevin lets it be known he doesn't put toppings on his ice cream anymore. The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/06/09/episode-226-sql-server-iaas-agent-extension/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Have you ever created a report in a visualization tool, spent all this time and energy creating something that looked really cool, went through more edits than you could remember only to deliver the report and have the recipient go "What am I looking at?" I don't think I am the only one and, in this episode, we explore some of the rookie mistakes IT pros make when creating visualizations. The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/05/26/episode-225-dashboard-design-principles. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Carlos, Kevin, and Eugene reconnect after some time away with a new streaming time. Long form conversation on a single topic is also the place we want to get back to in our podcast. The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/04/28/episode-224-the-standup-meeting/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

With both Kevin and Eugene busy this week, Carlos went solo to share a few changes to the podcast, including the Twitch livestream moving to Tuesday, how you can support the podcast, and podcast episodes going back to being published every other Wednesday. If you have a subject that you'd like to chat about on the podcast with us, we'd love to schedule a time with you…go to sqldatapartners.com/podcast to sign up. We invite you to submit to our Call for Speakers for SQL Trail June 2021, starting April 15th, and whether you speak or not, to attend SQL Trail on June 15th. Carlos also discusses how you can join the SQL Data Partners team as an independent contractor. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/04/14/episode-223-podcast-update. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Azure Arc-enabled data services provide powerful capabilities to deploy and manage local, on-premises, and hybrid cloud data resources using the same centralized management and tooling you get from the Azure cloud. Since Eugene suggested our previous attempt at Azure Arc was insufficient, we invited Ben Weissman and Anthony Nocentino, authors of the book Azure Arc-Enabled Data Services Revealed, to the podcast to discuss how this technology came about and why the future looks very exciting. The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/03/24/episode-222-azure-arc-enabled-data-services. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Virtual conferences are just not the same as the conferences we are used to, but we're still determined to provide a good learning and networking environment for our friends. We very much miss having conferences in person and look forward to that happening again. In the meantime, we have discovered Airmeet and we had a great event: our first of the year. We are doing another data platform conference in June similar to this one and a bigger event in October. Carlos and Kevin sit down and dissect the good, the bad and the indifferent that was SQL Trail March 2021. The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/03/22/episode-221-sql-trail-march-2021-retrospective. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As we prepare for SQL Trail on March 18th, we peek back at Microsoft Ignite and review the announcements made there—filtering out the pieces our compañeros will enjoy hearing about. Did we miss something you think we should talk about? Let us know! The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/03/10/episode-220-microsoft-ignite-recap. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

How do you document your SQL Server environments? I can remember walking through Brent Ozar's takeover script back in the day and how cumbersome it was to put all that information together. We have a few more options available to us now. In this episode, we discuss a listener question along with some options for doing server inventories. SQL Trail is coming on March 18th. Will we see you there? The show notes (and video) for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/02/24/episode-219-sql-server-inventory. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, Eugene and I go back to our DBA beginnings and talk about database file growth, how to manage files and how to tell when a file has grown. The show notes for today's episode (including the video with the demonstration) can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/02/17/episode-218-file-growths. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The story begins with a process that has been running forever and suddenly decides to cause grief by filling up tempdb. We talk about patching, and we talk about mental health. We talk a little about various topics. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/02/10/episode-217-a-little-something-about-a-few-things. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

When working on a customer on an import process, she made the comment—if we were doing true EDI, we'd [Do X]. The comment got me thinking—Aren't we working on an EDI process? As someone who frequently has multiple roles on projects, I perhaps had lumped all the various 3 letter acronyms into the same spaghetti salad. In this episode of the podcast, Eugene and I chat about the differences—and how thy might impact your team. Data projects can get complex with lots of moving pieces and understanding the different pieces can be helpful as you work to solve your specific pieces of the puzzle. The show notes for this episode and the video to watch Eugene's Query Folding demo in action can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/02/03/episode-216-edi-vs-etl. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

We have been moving data for years with technologies like DTS and SSIS; however, these were very much designed for on-premises moves in mind. As more cloud services were being offered Microsoft needed a service to help customers using those services move data around. Azure Data Factory was born with the initial premise of moving data between cloud services; however, it has added the ability to connect with on-premises systems and continues to add a variety of connectors it can now natively support. In this episode, we chat with our friend Andy Leonard about Azure Data Factory, his experience working with the product team, and how customers can leverage the cloud to get business done faster. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/01/27/episode-215-azure-data-factory/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

We open this year with a few updates on the podcast, a change to SQL Trail, and we invite you to give us some feedback on writing a book for 2021. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2021/01/13/episode-213-new-goals-for-2021/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

20 years ago, the objection to implementing security on the basis of performance had validity—especially for smaller organizations. Security was a pain in the neck; however, how many of us are still hanging on to some of those old biases. Even worse, some of us IT pros seem to put up objections to doing the most basic security procedures—sending usernames and passwords in unencrypted emails for example. In this episode we hear from Karen Lopez, a long time speaker on data architecture and security about 10 things she thinks those of us with data stewardship responsibilities should consider. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/12/31/episode-212-10-things-you-need-to-know-about-data-security/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Microsoft released a lengthy white paper on the SolarWinds hack affecting thousands of computers. This is scary stuff, and the details continue to come out slowly and you wonder how it all will play out. Many IT pros rely on SolarWinds for monitoring and in this episode, we discuss the exploit, how mere mortals like us might feel a bit overwhelmed at the prospect, and what our due diligence is in a scenario like this. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/12/23/episode-211-solorigate/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

It was sad news to hear PASS plans to dissolve in January of 2021. So much good has come of the community and it is sad to see it go. In this episode, we explore the why behind the collapse and what we think may emerge in the aftermath. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/12/18/episode-210-the-elephant-in-the-room/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Finding your first full time job is incredibly difficult—and that was before we were in a worldwide pandemic. In this episode, we discuss some strategies and share some experiences about how we got our first jobs and hopefully give you some inspiration as you try to find your first experience. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/12/14/episode-209-career-ready-advice-to-new-graduates/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

There is a growing list of formats to store data and Graph is one of the newer trends. It is becoming so popular SQL Server has created ways to implement graph structures. Mala Mahadevan joins us in this episode, and we revisit some of the origins of Graph, what it is good at, and why you may not want to rush to move all your data to Graph storage. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/10/28/episode-208-sql-server-and-graph-data/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

SQL Trail 2020 was a success! There was a time I was unconvinced this would be the case. This is not to say we didn't have issues; however, talking with others helped us avoid some common pitfalls and make our event unique. Although we were virtual, I sent all the attendees a conference t-shirt, some swag, and cookies! I wanted everyone to feel some excitement and a connection that I was not sure would be possible in a virtual setting. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/10/15/episode-207-sql-trail-2020-retrospective/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

There are many programming languages available to the modern developer and there are even more options for connecting to the database. In this episode, we talk with Taurius Litvinavicius about his Manning course on connecting .NET Core to SQL Server. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/09/16/episode-206-net-core-interactions-with-sql-server. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Power BI is founded on the idea of self-service BI and Excel is the most common data source in the world. While Power BI can import that information with ease, the data may not be in the best format. In this episode, we discuss areas report creators should consider when building Power BI reports so their reports can perform to their satisfaction and maintenance of the reports will be easier over the long run. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/09/03/episode-205-data-modeling-for-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

A variety of devices now have the ability to report metrics about status, performance, or other sensor information. Collecting this information and making it useful in business operations can be difficult and the Internet of Things (IoT) provides options for consuming, processing, and reporting. Microsoft has introduced a number of different offerings, and in this episode, we touch on a couple of them and discuss scenarios where one may serve you better than another. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/08/19/episode-204-iot-in-azure. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As we stretch the technology stack in this episode, I rely on my trusty co-hosts to get us through. Kevin and Jean-Georges Perrin do a great job giving us their thoughts on Spark. I hope you will enjoy the episode. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/08/06/episode-203-spark-in-action. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As COVID-19 prevents us from gathering in the same place, how do organizers continue to put on compelling events? This strikes home as SQL Data Partners consider whether to have our SQL Trail event this fall. Matt Gordon put on an event in April and I was interested to get his take on how things went and how he accomplished his goals for the event. I have also participated in several online events and in the episode we discuss the pros and cons of virtual events and we give our take on how to make them better. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/07/22/episode-202-virtual-conferences. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

After we recorded Episode 189, we knew we lacked some of the business reasons behind the Common Data Model. Luckily, we reached out Tricia Wilcox-Almas and she has helped us fill in some of the gaps and also present how the Common Data Model is implemented in the new versions of Azure Data Lake. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/07/08/episode-201-common-data-model. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

To celebrate our 200th episode, we reached out to Bob Ward to come and celebrate this milestone with us. I have to plead the 5th on why it took us 200 episodes to finally invite him; however, we finally wised up and Bob walks us through some of the changes SQL Server has experienced over the years and what is in store (Spoiler—no big scoops) for the relational engine. We also have a several copies of Bob's SQL Server 2019 Revealed book to give away and he was gracious enough to sign them. We appreciate Bob joining us and look forward to another 200 episodes. The show notes for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2020/06/24/episode-200-anything-but-the-cowboys. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

We can incur technical debt in several ways—aging technology, choosing delivery speed over scale architecture, or implementing new technology the entire team cannot yet support. I don't know that I've ever worked at a place that hasn't talked about technical debt. It wasn't until I stumbled on a talk by Adam Lenda that make me think about the ways I might contribute to technical debt. He also gave some ideas of how I can help pay it off. In this episode, we talk with Adam about what technical debt is, why we might be okay incurring some, and situations we might put ourselves into when trying to do 'the right thing'. Adam also suggests some ways to pay off some of this burden and like most debt, there is no easy fix and he suggests running a pretty tight ship; however, I found his ideas insightful and I think you will, too. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/05/06/episode-199-technical-debt. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In a previous episode (175) we discussed migrating to the cloud, and we had a few comments from our compañeros which mentioned we should include more details around cloud infrastructure—the pieces or processes you want or DON'T want to administer. In this episode, we dive into cloud infrastructure and discuss some scenarios on when you might choose one over the other. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/04/22/episode-198-cloud-infrastructure. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In 1990, the group Snap! release a song called "The Power". It would take Microsoft more than 20 years, but they eventually came up with a series of 'power' tools they built into Excel. Those tools later grew into Power BI--which is kinda like Voltron if you are old enough to remember. In this episode we discuss one of the first data manipulation tools in the set: Power Query. Before you start manipulating all those fun visualizations, you might need to get your data in shape. If you have a data warehouse, you are probably in good shape; however, for the rest of us, there is Power Query. This episode takes us through an overview and discusses in what cases you might have to dive into the code, or M language, when the GUI doesn't cut it. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/04/15/episode-197-power-query-in-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

This is a topic I have been interested in covering for some time and as our world faces a crisis dictating that we stay home, it seems like a good time to talk about teleworking. Everyone will have a different situation of course, but we thought we share some of our experiences. I continue to suggest a need to stay connected to your team and while we have lots of technology available to help us, there are a couple of things you can do to help avoid getting knocked out of the loop. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/04/01/episode-196-teleworking. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The number of new programming languages never ceases to amaze me. Technology advances continue to require new ways of allowing users to customize the way they use tools and Power BI is no different. In this episode, Ginger Grant joins us as we continue the conversation about DAX and some considerations you need to make should you want to pick up another language for the toolbelt. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/03/26/episode-195-understanding-dax. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

After Episode 180 on PolyBase came out, we received a few questions on use cases for PolyBase. Compañeros, when you ask, we reply! This episode we carve out 3 use cases for PolyBase and ways in which you might change workflows based on this SQL Server 2019 feature. If you want to dive much deeper into PolyBase, you can always check out Kevin's book on Apress! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/03/18/episode-194-polybase-use-cases. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Our regular host is down for the count with the flu; however, the podcast must go on! In this episode, we answer a listener-submitted question about Power BI Premium. Kevin and Eugene take us through Sachin Gangwar's questions. We hope you will submit your question for a future episode! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/03/11/episode-193-power-bi-premium. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

What is the future of the DBA and what technologies should I be focused on? In this episode, we attempt to look into the crystal ball and give our take on the future of work for the data platform professional. We focus our conversation around two listener-provided questions about the best way to stay educated in an ever-changing landscape. The DBA is dead. Long live the DBA. Join the discussion. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/03/04/episode-192-the-dba-is-dead-long-live-the-dba. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Wouldn't it be nice if you could filter the rows a user sees in Power BI? What's that? You've already implemented Row-Level Security at the database level? Well, that actually won't help you in Power BI. Yikes. In this episode we discuss ways to filter by records in Power BI and why it might be so confusing to implement what at first glance seems like a straightforward request. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/02/12/episode-191-power-bi-row-level-security. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Getting released just before the end of the year, SQL Server 2019 is now available in general release. While at first glance, it appeared this release was all about Big Data Clusters, and rightfully so--it brings 'cloud first' options to on-premises scenarios; however, it is not the only big feature. We spoke about some of the Polybase changes in Episode 180 and in this episode, Javier Villegas guides us as we dive into some of the performance enhancements--and run out of time. This just means we need a few more episodes to dig into more features. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/02/05/episode-190-sql-server-2019. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Moving data is fairly straightforward; however, mapping data from one source to another can be extremely challenging. In an attempt to help self-service BI users, Microsoft has introduced a Common Data Model, and in this episode, we discuss the new model. This may not be as approachable for organizations which already have a data warehouse; however, for those who are in the Microsoft suite of tools and looking to report on that data in Power BI, the Common Data Model may be the jump start to get the model you need to get going. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/01/22/episode-189-power-bi-common-data-model. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

A couple of years ago, Netflix offered a reward for anyone who could improve the algorithm for choosing a movie. The team that came in second took what they learned from it and created a company -- Databricks. In this episode, we focus on Databricks; why it is popular, what it can be used for, and considerations for its use. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/01/15/episode-188-databricks. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Make it go faster! Visualizations are great, but when users start complaining about the load times on reports, it can be a tough exercise to figure out the issues. In this episode, we discuss ways you can measure the speed of your Power BI reports. We also get into some of the fundamentals of data storage for Power BI. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/01/08/episode-187-power-bi-performance-tuning. Have fun on the SQL Trail!