Compress and split SQL database backups using WinRar

August 4, 2020 by Nisarg Upadhyay

Recently, we have received a strange request from our customer. They want us to set up a schedule a backup job that generates a backup of SQL database, compress the backup file in multiple compressed archive files (WinRAR files.) We tried to explain to the customer that the SQL Server native backups are capable of compressing the backup file, and it can split a large and compressed backup into multiple backup files. But they insisted us to use the WinRAR software to compress and split the backup.

Implementing an SSAS Tabular Model for Data Analytics

August 4, 2020 by Dinesh Asanka

Introduction

Having discussed different aspects of MDM SSAS cubes, we will look at the Microsoft recommended OLAP tool, SSAS Tabular Models for data analytics. There are a few advantages of using Tabular Models over MDM that are listed below.

Building full-text indexes using the Sphinx search engine

August 4, 2020 by Hadi Fadlallah

In the previously published article, Getting started with Sphinx search engine, we talked about the Sphinx search engine and how to install it on the Windows operating system. In this article, we will talk about building full-text indexes using Sphinx. We will be covering seven topics:

Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases Trip to Azure SQL Database

August 3, 2020 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous article of this series, Migrate SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases trip to SQL Server on Azure VM, we went through the methods that can be used for assessing your on-premises SQL Server databases before the migration process then migrating it to a SQL Server instance hosted in a Microsoft Azure VM.

Link an Azure Cosmos DB into a SQL Server Stored Procedure

August 3, 2020 by Frank Solomon

Introduction

Microsoft Azure offers hundreds of cloud products, with more on the way. In the database space, Microsoft offers Azure Cosmos DB, a NoSQL database product. We can build Java, .Net, etc. applications around Cosmos DB resources. To extend this capability, this article will show how to query Cosmos DB directly from SQL Server.

Share AWS Redshift data across accounts

August 3, 2020 by Rahul Mehta

This article provides a step by step explanation of how to share AWS Redshift database snapshots with other AWS accounts to enable porting of data from one AWS account to another.

Managing snapshots in AWS Redshift clusters

July 31, 2020 by Rahul Mehta

This article gives an overview of configuring AWS Redshift snapshots for scheduled data backup, data archival, as well as disaster recovery.

Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Databases Trip to SQL Server on Azure VM

July 31, 2020 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous articles of this series, we built the bridge that leads us to the best way of migrating our SQL workload to Microsoft Azure, by showing how to create the databases migration strategy that contains a deep study of the current environment and the available options in Azure to replace the on-premises setup, which we tried to make it easier by providing all Azure database services and the workload that fits each service, and finally, we introduced several Microsoft tools and services that can be used to assess the current setup, provide migration guidance steps and migrate the databases to Microsoft Azure services with the minimal downtime.

Getting started with Amazon S3 and Python

July 31, 2020 by Aveek Das

In this article, I am going to explain what Amazon S3 is and how to connect to it using python. This article will be focused on beginners who are trying to get their hands on python and working around the AWS ecosystem. AWS, as you might know, is one of the largest cloud providers along with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. There are a lot of services offered by Amazon including AWS S3. Amazon S3, also abbreviated as Amazon Simple Storage Service is a storage service offered by the cloud provider that enables the users to store any kind of files in this service. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Assessment and Migration Tools

July 31, 2020 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous articles of this series we discussed how to draw the initial strategy when planning to migrate the SQL workload to Microsoft Azure, the different database target platforms provided by Microsoft Azure that can be used as a migration target, based on the workload type, and finally, we went through some tools that help in discovering and assessing the on-premises environment by identifying the migration blocking issues and providing guidance steps for the migration process.

Working with Power BI Data Models in Visual Studio Code

July 30, 2020 by Aveek Das

In this article, I am going to introduce the Tabular Object Model (TOM) in the Power BI Data Model and provide an understanding of how this model can be accessed outside of the Power BI environment. For more info about the Tabular Object Model in the Power BI Data Model, please read this article. In this tutorial, we are going to use the Visual Studio Code to simply write a dotnet console application and try to access the Tabular Object Model from the Power BI file. With the help of this knowledge, programmers and BI developers can not only view the underlying model in the Power BI Data Model but also can enhance the data model programmatically by writing a few lines of code. It can also be further improved by automating the creation of the Power BI models with the help of the Tabular Object Model library in dotnet.

Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Guidance and Assessment Tools

July 30, 2020 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous articles, Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Planning the jump and Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Services Selection, we discussed the steps that you should follow when you start thinking loudly that you need to migrate your SQL workload to Azure, by checking your on-prem site and the available services and features in Azure that meet your workload handling requirements. After that, we went through different database services provided by Azure and which one fits a specific workload, in order to make it easy for you to translate the current workload as an Azure service.

Database-level health detection in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

July 30, 2020 by Rajendra Gupta

This is the 8^th article in the series for SQL Server Always On Availability Groups.

Split SQL database backups into multiple backup files using SSMS

July 29, 2020 by Nisarg Upadhyay

In this article, I am going to explain how we can split the large backup file into multiple small backup files using SSMS 2016. I will also explain how we can combine multiple backups to restore a database and split the backup of the SQL database using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

Add or remove a node from SQL Server Always On Availability Groups using T-SQL scripts

July 29, 2020 by Rajendra Gupta

This is the 7^th article in the series of SQL Server Always on Availability Groups.

Load data into AWS Redshift from AWS S3

July 29, 2020 by Rahul Mehta

This article gives an overview of configuring the redshift cluster to access AWS S3 as well as loading data into AWS Redshift.

Getting started with Azure SQL Analytics

July 29, 2020 by Prashanth Jayaram

Using Azure SQL Analytics, you will rediscover the new ways to manage the Azure SQL Database. Microsoft is driving an intelligent platform to provide seamless collaboration for all their end users to business analysts, by building an effective Log Analytics stack and intelligent insight through dashboards.

Diving deep with complex Data Structures

July 29, 2020 by Aveek Das

In my previous article, Understanding common Data Structures, I have mentioned the most commonly used data structures in software programming. In this article, let us get into some more details about the other data structures that are a bit complex than the ones already discussed but also used quite often while designing software applications. Here, we will look into the following data structures.

Learn MySQL: Sorting and Filtering data in a table

July 28, 2020 by Nisarg Upadhyay

In this article, we will learn how we can sort and filter data using the WHERE clause and sort the data using the ORDER BY clause. In my previous article, Learn MySQL: Querying data from MySQL server using the SELECT statement, we learned how to generate the ER diagram using reverse-engineering the database using MySQL workbench and basics of SELECT statement and usage. Ins this article, we will learn how we can sort and filter data using the WHERE clause and sort the data using the ORDER BY clause.

Load data from AWS S3 to AWS RDS SQL Server databases using AWS Glue

July 28, 2020 by Rahul Mehta

This article explains how to develop ETL (Extract Transform Load) jobs using AWS Glue to load data from AWS S3 into AWS RDS SQL Server database objects.

Using Diskspd to test SQL Server Storage Subsystems

July 28, 2020 by Esat Erkec

In this article, we will learn how to test our storage subsystems performance using Diskspd. The storage subsystem is one of the key performance factors for SQL Server because SQL Server storage engine stores database objects, tables, and indexes on the physical files. Therefore, the storage engine always interacts with the disk subsystem because of data processing. In this context, when a bottleneck occurs on the storage subsystems, it causes a negative impact on SQL Server performance. It would be the right approach to measure the performance of the disks to be used before the SQL Server installation based on their usage purposes. For example, OLTP databases have to complete delete, insert, and update processes in a short time but OLAP databases handle a huge amount of batch data. In this case, the storage requirement of these two database systems should differ from each other. In short, it is a best practice to test and analyze the performance of the storage subsystems according to their usage purposes so that we can eliminate the I/O problems in advance.

Learn SQL: Naming Conventions

July 28, 2020 by Emil Drkusic

A naming convention is a set of unwritten rules you should use if you want to increase the readability of the whole data model. Today, I’ll try to explain how you should formulate your naming convention and, maybe even more important, why should you do it and what is the overall benefit from using it.

Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Services Selection

July 28, 2020 by Ahmad Yaseen

In the previous article, Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Planning the jump, we discussed the main points that should be checked and considered while drawing your plan to migrate the SQL workload from the on-premises datacenters to Microsoft Azure. In this article, we will go through the different database services that are provided by Microsoft Azure to help you in selecting the proper service that can serve your SQL workload when migrating it to Microsoft Azure.

Learn MySQL: What is pagination

July 27, 2020 by Nisarg Upadhyay

In this article, I am going to explain that in MySQL, what is pagination and how we can implement it. When we are populating a large dataset from the MySQL database, it is not easy to read all the records on the same page. Using pagination, we can divide the result-set into multiple pages, and that increases the readability of the result set. In this article, I am going to explain:

Understanding the SQL MERGE statement

July 27, 2020 by Aveek Das

In this article, I am going to give a detailed explanation of how to use the SQL MERGE statement in SQL Server. The MERGE statement in SQL is a very popular clause that can handle inserts, updates, and deletes all in a single transaction without having to write separate logic for each of these. You can specify conditions on which you expect the MERGE statement to insert, update, or delete, etc.