SQL Data Partners Podcast

2020 dawns a first for our podcast. This episode is dedicated entirely to a listener question. We've had questions before; however, this episode the team tackles two questions from longtime listener Trent Adams. The context of his questions surround the concepts of IT having the ability to provide new functionality to the business and the business appearing to be uninterested in moving forward. While we don't know the entire situation, we discuss the best way to identify pain points and ways to introduce new technology without imposing new rules/processes on the business. We would very much like to have more listener inspired episodes this year. If you have something you want to share with us, head over to sqldatapartners.com/podcast and submit your question and we'll try to help you on the SQL Trail! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2020/01/01/episode-186-analytics-security-find-pain-points-make-a-plan. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Why write a book, when you already have a site full of documentation? In this episode we chat with Rob Sewell about his project to write a book, DBATools in a Month of Lunches. He gives us some insights on what the book is about, how it is different than documentation, and how the process of making the book available in pieces has helped the creative process. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/12/19/episode-185-dbatools-in-a-month-of-lunches. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

​You've seen the visualizations and want to dive in--perhaps you were assigned the task. However you started with Power BI, chances are you might get stuck at some point. In this episode, we chat about strategies you can employee to help ensure success. Have a take on this? Hit us up on social media. We'd love to hear from you. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/12/11/episode-184-where-do-people-get-stuck-with-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail.

SQL Server 2019 is out and one of the most interesting additions is SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters. In this episode, Kevin Feasel covers the marriage of SQL Server and Apache Spark. We discuss what Big Data Clusters are (and how it's not a SQL Server feature or an edition of SQL Server, but a thing in itself), cover some of the architecture behind the solution, and explain how we can use them. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/12/04/episode-183-sql-server-big-data-clusters. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The very first podcast episode I recorded was about Extended Events. We've had several new versions of SQL Server since that time, so I thought it was time to bring up the subject again. We are joined by MVP Jason Brimhall and he shares his insights on Extended Events, what has changed, and how to get started.

In the second quarter of 2019, it was announced that Power BI would support paginated reports--at first this was assumed to be connected to an announcement that Power BI would support the RDL files from Reporting Services. The guidance however, was to continue building paginated reports in Power BI. In the fourth quarter of 2019, more information emerged about paginated reports and in this episode we drill into the offering of paginated reports in Power BI and...shhh...we won't spoil it, but an old friend just might play a role in this 'new' offering. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/11/13/episode-181-paginated-reports-in-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

This week we heard the news of the release for SQL Server 2019 and a major focus of this release is data virtualization. In this episode, we discuss PolyBase--a topic we covered in Episode 95; however it has really come of age with SQL Server 2019. Our very own Kevin Feasel talks about some of the improvements of the feature and we discuss some of the use cases of when it will be useful and some of the pitfalls you might run into as you implement it. We discuss how PolyBase can help you reduce storage and other costs by avoiding the need for ETL processes that duplicate data in order to make it accessible from one source. Kevin is putting the final touches on his book PolyBase Revealed, and if you are looking for a deep dive into the subject, we invite you to check out his book. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/11/06/episode-180-polybase-in-sql-server-2019. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

SQL Trail continues to be an experiment in the making and year three proved no different. Eugene joined us this year and we discuss some of the changes, how the vision has changed for the conference and what the future will hold for our event. While there is plenty to be excited about with our event, we couldn't help ourselves and get into a discussion about Power BI and purchasing options. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/10/24/episode-179-sql-trail-recap-buying-power-bi. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

After 170 episodes, we bring back Louis Davidson to talk about database design and get his thoughts on how we can get better at planning for our data. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/10/16/episode-178-database-design. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The Lock Pages in Memory policy came up in our internal discussions. I wanted to chat about it a bit more and I couldn't think of a better person than Rick Lowe. After our recent SQL Trail, we sit down to discuss this policy option. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/10/09/episode-177-lock-pages-in-memory. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Creating reports in Power BI is awesome, but once you are ready to publish the reports--where are you going to store all the data? In this episode, we discuss storage options for Power BI and discuss how the version of Power BI can affect storage. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/09/25/episode-176-power-bi-storage-options/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Are you in the cloud? Lots of folks are talking about moving to the cloud; however, as we find in today's episode this can be tricky to quantify what people mean by being "in the cloud". We are happy to welcome Rick Lowe to the show and he gives his take on working with AWS. We explore what it means to move to the cloud, our experience helping companies get there, why companies would want to consider cloud options, and how you can keep up with all the craziness of new technologies in the cloud. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/09/19/episode-175-migrating-to-the-cloud. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

What do you do when you want to use the Visualizations of Power BI but management doesn't want to send company data to the cloud? Well, you can implement Power BI Report Server! In this episode we discuss the differences in architecture with the on-premises version of Power BI along with the limitations and options this version brings. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/06/26/episode-174-power-bi-report-server. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

As the data platform continues to evolve, so do certifications. In this episode we chat with Rick Heiges about the new role-based certifications and how they fit into Microsoft's cloud platform. We revisit how certifications still play a role in career development and how certifications have changed. Also, Kevin gives us his experience with taking an exam at home. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/06/12/episode-173-new-data-certifications. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

From a SQL Server perspective we have many ways to identify problem areas. In this episode, we discuss ways to diagnose performance issues in Power BI. They are certainly making many strides; however, the tools won't feel as mature as they do in SQL Server. We review usage metrics, audit logs, the new Data Gateway monitoring tool and monitoring options in Power BI Premium. The Performance Analyzer had just been released and while we don't go into great detail, we'll be sure to include it in the show notes. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/06/05/episode-172-power-bi-monitoring/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

You've got first name, last name, full name, birth date, address, email, phone, tax ID or Social Security Number, driver's license number, medical evaluation notes, MAC address, and IP address columns in a table. So, what would you encrypt in this table? In this episode, our guest, Tom Norman discusses various encryption options and how he goes about choosing what to encrypt. As there are more and more security breaches, the ability to encrypt data is as important as ever. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/05/22/episode-171-sql-server-encryption. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Two years ago blogger Jay Killeen observed, "And with modern languages and modern applications such as PowerBI and Power Query you should be safe to assume there would be modern tooling. You would be wrong." In this episode, Eugene and I explore the challenges with Devops in Power BI and some ways we and others have implemented to help us deal with versions and team development of reports. Companeros, you can also win a SQL Data Partners T-shirt if you post on social media using the hashtag #sqltrail. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/05/15/episode-170-devops-with-power-bi/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

These are dark times. Drastic measures must be taken. In this episode, we talk about--coding. *Queue scary music* Last year I bumped into Sean McCown and found out he had coded himself a GUI for his MinionWare product. This left me both impressed and stumped. We talk with Sean, Eugene, and Kevin about why they decided to learn a coding language and I give some of my hesitations for not picking up a coding book. The show notes can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/05/08/episode-169-should-you-learn-to-code. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

One of the great abilities we have with Power BI is connecting to multiple data sources. Authors can actually publish data sources for others to use in their reports. Developers then get to mix and match our reports with all that data; however, there will be times we don't want everyone to see all the data sources. In today's episode, we discuss Power BI privacy levels, what they are and what they can--and can't do for you. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/05/01/episode-168-data-privacy-settings. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Azure SQL Data Sync has been generally available for almost a year now. Have you heard of it? Are you using it? Microsoft's page tell us that "Data Sync is useful in cases where data needs to be kept up-to-date across several Azure SQL databases or SQL Server databases." When you want to learn about a new product or feature, who better to ask than the Senior Project Manager in charge of it? Today we chat about Azure SQL Data Sync with Xiaochen Wu from Microsoft. He explains how it works, why you might want to use it, it's current limitations and what's in the pipeline in the way of improvements. It's an exciting time to be in technology and a great conversation! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/04/24/episode-167-azure-sql-data-sync. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The number one reason organizations choose Power BI is the ability to visualize data; however, even with all the immediate choices, many report developers desire to create custom visualizations. In this episode, we chat about custom visualizations for Power BI: how to get them, how to pick them, and when (if ever) you would consider building your own. Have a favorite custom visualization you have used? Let us know! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/04/17/episode-166-custom-visuals. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Why should I care about this episode? I know many of you are going to ask that question. Artificial Intelligence is getting lots of buzz and in this episode we invite Hope Foley from Microsoft to discuss why and how AI is relevant to those in the data platform community. We get a little help from Kevin Feasel as we try to connect the dots between all the hype and how this can and will affect you in the future. Did we do a good job? Let us know and contribute to the conversation. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/03/27/episode-165-artificial-intelligence. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

DAX is the acronym for Data Analysis Expressions, and it is the formula language used throughout Power BI. In this episode we talk about DAX concepts and how they are simple and straightforward, but can be confusing for those coming from a relational database background. DAX uses some unique programming concepts and patterns which can make it difficult to fully use and understand. We talk about some experiences getting started with this language and ideas on how you can get started. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/03/20/episode-164-the-dax-episode. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Are you experiencing challenges managing Very Large Databases (VLDBs), or anticipate challenges with future growth? In this episode, we are joined by Aaron Hayes to discuss the practical advice on managing very large databases in SQL Server, focusing on common problem areas we have found, along with our own experiences. Topics include storage layout decisions, unique tuning challenges, HA/DR implications, and database restores, along with the challenges of getting backups, re-indexing and DBCC checks into your maintenance windows. No comparisons here -- we are sure you will enjoy the discussion regardless of your database size. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/03/12/episode-163-very-large-databases. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In this corner, coming in with all its Excel glory we have Power Query! And in this corner we have a new programming language, DAX! Have you ever felt like there is a tug of war going on between these two technologies? In this episode, the team discusses the two technologies, what they do, when -- and perhaps more importantly, WHY might you use them. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/02/27/episode-162-power-query-vs-dax. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

How do you migrate 8,000 databases on a single instance in an environment that doesn't tolerate downtime? Today's episode focuses on migration strategy and how our guest Andy Levy faced the challenge of moving all those databases in the time constraints given him by the business. We also talk about some of the strategies Andy employs to administer and monitor all those databases. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/02/20/episode-161-migrating-upgrading-8000-databases. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

The traditional model for Power BI is to pay per user, but what if you want to use the reports in your web app and don't know who all the users would be? In this episode the team explores Power BI Embedded -- how it differs from the traditional service, what you need to set it up, and some reasons why you might explore this option over the others. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/02/13/episode-160-power-bi-embedded. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

So what happens when you want to use data from two different sources, manipulate it (transform it) and then present the data in Power BI -- and you don't know how to use SSIS? Well, it turns out you can use Power BI dataflows. In this episode we explore the topic of dataflows with our guest, Matthew Roche, and talk about the scenarios and types of folks dataflows was intended for. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/02/06/episode-159-power-bi-dataflows. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

For only 10 bucks a month you can start visualizing your data and finally get the dashboard your executives have been waiting for!! What's that? You need to refresh the data--perhaps even multiple times a day? Oh, well it's still $10 a month, but you are also going to install a gateway. What's that you say? Well, in this episode we begin our discussion on Power BI with one of the first components you will need outside of the Power BI Desktop for your users to start interacting with updated data. We discuss what it is, some of the requirements, and our experiences setting one up. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/01/23/episode-158-gateways. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

I can still remember working in high school when you had to 'dial in' to the internet and Microsoft bought the rights to the Rolling Stones song 'Start Me Up' for the release of their highly anticipated software Windows 95. It was a complete game changer for me and shaped my professional life with the releases of the Windows Server Operating System. While you could never just wing it, the GUI provided a rich interface and the ability to explore features without having to know all the syntax to execute the functionality. You can image the surprise I felt when Microsoft came out with Windows Core--an operating system with no GUI. While you may not have adopted Windows Core yet, our guest, Frank Henninger, suggests you should reconsider. We chat with him about the benefits, some of the challenges, and how we can better take advantage of using Windows Core. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/01/10/episode-157-windows-server-core. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

How well do you connect with others? We generally think pretty good of ourselves and at first glance you may give yourself a pretty high score. While there is no test you can take to compare your results to mine, the way you connect with others can have a profound influence in the workplace and we are each judged by the people we come in contact with. Our guest in this episode, Linda Groszyk, talks with us about some of the ways social intelligence can impact us, how we can get better at it and who we can reach out to if we need help. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2019/01/02/episode-156-social-intelligence. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Do you want to be a data scientist? Do you even know what data science is? In this episode, we tackle the idea of being a data scientist and discuss the criteria and what it may take to get the job description of data scientist. So not everyone feels out in the cold, our guest Brad Llewellyn, talks about how this field has developed out of data analysis and how we may have much more in common than differences between us. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/12/12/episode-155-data-science/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Who hasn't had a deployment go a bit sideways? For all the talk of DevOps these days, the ability to push out code can still be challenging. When I heard David Moore, our guest today, talk about the increased confidence they have in pushing out database changes in very short cycles, I was interested. While we have talked about tSQLt in the past, David's experience of trying to implement test driven development and the results they experienced are worth considering. While the results can be impressive, the cultural shift required to introduce and use the framework is also a point of discussion in this episode. I also asked David why the examples we see are so simple that it almost seems pointless to get started. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/11/28/episode-154-test-driven-development. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Year Two of our beautiful idea--gather together with a group of podcast listeners in a conference type format and find ways for us to connect and help each other grow. I am influenced by what I see in other events; however, I want to add my own flavor to what is currently offered. I want SQL Trail to be different--learning should be attendee-driven rather than event planned. The focus should be on the networking--the hallway track. Everyone should make a new friend. In this episode of the podcast, we have our SQL Trail retrospective and give some thoughts on what next year might entail. We try to give our honest feedback about what we did well, what could have been improved, and what the attendees reported. I can't say enough about the help I got from our speakers–Jonathan Stewart, Kevin Feasel, Angela Henry, Monica Rathbun, Megan Longoria and Melissa Coates. They were awesome and the event was much simpler because of them and their commitment. They are truly my compañeros on the SQL Trail. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/11/07/episode-153-sql-trail-2018-retrospective. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Those trained in SSAS may cringe a bit, but a curious thought entered my mind. Many organizations start using data warehouse structure with fact and dimension tables, but never make it to the 'cube' state--actually using analysis services. Admittedly, I don't use SSAS and the occasional reprocessing of a cube or dimension is about my only experience. When Trey Johnson, our guest for this episode, wanted to chat about SSAS, I thought this would be interesting to get his perspective on using SSAS, the future of the service, and how PowerBI just might make it much more accessible. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/11/1/episode-152-do-you-use-analysis-services. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Platform as a service has finally arrived to Microsoft's Azure offering. With the release of Azure SQL Database Managed Instances--quite the mouthful--there is now an option to explore database services without missing all the functionality we didn't have with Azure SQL Database. We are joined by Javier Villegas to discuss his experiences with Managed Instances and why we think this will be one service more organizations will want to start adopting. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/24/episode-151-azure-sql-database-managed-instance. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Today we, the SQL Data Partners team, celebrate our 150th podcast episode! We introduce ourselves, talk about what we're doing, our goals for the coming year and answer the SQL Family questions. Come get to know us! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/18/episode-150-sql-data-partners-team. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Do you ever feel like you have too many databases to manage? Managing lot of databases can get tricky and in this episode we explore some of the techniques you can use when you need to manage lots of databases. Tracy Boggiano joins us to discuss some of her techniques, as she has managed over 300 instances. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/11/episode-149-managing-lots-of-databases. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

SSRS is great -- it comes with SQL Server, provides quite a bit of functionality, but sometimes doesn't always perform well. In this episode we welcome back Bert Wagner as he chats with us about some of the ways he has improved his under-performing reports. Our conversation focuses on SSRS itself -- we are going to assume you can tune the queries in SSMS from previous episodes or the interwebs. What do you think of our list? Did we miss one? Let us know! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/27/episode-148-high-performance-ssrs. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Security is always important to data folks and when a new feature like Always Encrypted comes along, it gets your attention. In this episode, we discuss this feature introduced in SQL Server 2016. We are joined by our guest Sam Nasr and he shares an overview and we find it may not cover all the scenarios you might think when you hear the name. Our discussion leads to scenarios in both on-premises and cloud solutions. Joined by Kevin Feasel and Eugene Meidinger, this episode will allow you to be a bit more prepared when you hear someone say all your problems will be solved with Always Encrypted. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/19/episode-147-always-encrypted. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

So what is SQL Trail all about? In this episode we invite our MVPs to discuss some of the topics they are ready to share on SQL Trail. We know there are lots of options for training and networking -- this is our iteration on what the experience should be. If after you listen to the episode and want to sign up, you can use our sponsor code "MaconIT" to save $250 of the cost! We hope to see you on the SQL Trail! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/12/episode-146-sql-trail-speakers. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In this episode we finish up our conversation with Jason and Cathrine and talk about how they keep up with all the changes in data conversions. The advent of Azure services is great, but can be tricky to navigate. We also get to hear Jason's answers to the SQL Family questions. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/05/episode-145-is-ssis-still-relevant. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Moving data with SSIS is a forgone conclusion for most of us -- it is part of SQL Server, it has a interface we are somewhat familiar with, and connects to lots of common data sources like csv, excel, and of course SQL Server. Are our needs changing as our environments become more hybrid -- as we introduce cloud services? Are you still building packages the same way you were 10 years ago? Just as our data sources have grown, the capabilities needed to move data around have increased. This episode, with Jason Horner and Cathrine Wilhelmsen, challenges some of the thoughts around data movement and gives some things to think about as new tools are available to move data around. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/08/29/episode-144-is-ssis-still-relevant. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

We frequently talk about how many DBAs are concerned our job may be phased out in the future. This episode discusses one common career path in going from DBA to Data Warehouse Architect and we talk with Thomas LeBlanc about his transition: his decisions, his path and his advice. Many companies can't afford to staff separate individuals as developers, DBAs, analysists and architects, so there are generally opportunities for most of us to learn these technologies. Whether or not you can fully transition into a completely different job, never stop learning and broadening your knowledge base and abilities. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/08/08/episode-143-transitioning-from-dba-to-data-warehouse-architect. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Are you giving yourself a HEAP of trouble by using tables with no clustered indexes? But it is faster you say . . . because you don't have to worry about the sorting when inserting. Our guest Rick Lowe suggests everything is fast until you decide to SELECT, UPDATE, or DELETE. We talk about why you may or may not want to use HEAP tables. I know I was surprised to get his take on the use of HEAP tables and I think you will be, too. Do you agree with our assessment? Let us know in the comments on the show notes page. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/07/25/episode-142-do-you-have-a-heap-of-hurting. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In this episode, we chat with David Maxwell about wait stats, what they are and why we should care about them. There are so many different directions we can go and if you have a specific use case you'd like us to consider, let us know and we can include it in a future episode. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/07/04/episode-141-wait-wait-what. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

They're just numbers, right? A date's a date. It's just string data, who cares? I admit I have posed those questions before and only much later did I understand how complicated it can get. Angela Henry, our guest for today, has heard these same phrases many times before and she chats with us to enlighten us on the issue and ways we can get around it. Perhaps you have heard about terms like SARGable and implicit conversions. This episode seeks to tie these terms to one of the very first decisions you have to make about your data -- the data types. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/06/20/episode-140-why-data-types-matter. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

"The move to the cloud is inevitable." Listening to Microsoft marketing and all the MVPs out there, it can certainly seem like we are getting further and further behind each day we aren't use cloud services. Sure, lift and shift of VM resources are straightforward at this point and they are happening with more frequency; however, this doesn't mean everyone is leveraging cloud services. How do you go about trying to prepare for the future when the company you work for isn't quite ready to make the leap? In this episode, we talk with Jim Donahoe about making the transition from our traditional SQL Server environments to using Azure SQL Database. We discuss some of the basics and some of the challenges you will face as you make the migration. It can be a bit overwhelming to think about all the other services available in Azure. Lift and shift gets us to the 'cloud', but if we want to start doing the cool stuff, we will have to make our data available to start interfacing with these services. We know that cloud providers are pushing more hybrid models as not every system is ready for the cloud. New development initiatives make better candidates for the cloud services and this episode covers the first steps to help you on path to cloud services. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/06/13/episode-139-getting-started-with-sql-server-in-azure. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

I invited our fearless panelists Kevin Feasel and Eugene Meidinger to join me for a podcast discussion. We couldn't agree on a topic so we'll just call this episode Meeting of the Minds. You're welcome. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/06/06/episode-138-meeting-of-the-minds. Have fun on the SQL Trail!