The DBAs guide to stretch database

August 11, 2015 by

One of the new features in SQL Server 2016 – and there is a lot – is the ability to stretch the on premise databases to an Azure environment.

This blogpost will cover some of the aspects of this – including:

  • Primarily setup – how to get started
  • Monitoring state of databases that are in ‘stretch mode’
  • Daily work with stretch databases
  • Backup – what’s good to know
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Stretch Database – The art of extend to reduce

August 7, 2015 by

Let’s continue the hybrid saga! After two articles talking about the Azure Blob Storage and what we can do using it, it’s time to check an alternative solution, that does the same of what was presented in the last article (a Hybrid Database used as archival solution for who didn’t read). This time we are not using the Azure Blob Storage, but we are still using Azure!

The feature is…Stretch Database

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Azure Blob Storage – Literally a Hybrid database deployment

August 4, 2015 by

In continuation to our hybrid deployment series, we will check few more options in order to integrate on-premises and Azure, using of course SQL Server.

In the last article we talked about Azure Blob Storage and how to use this service to store a SQL Server database entirely there. Meaning that we can have our instance in our datacenter, see the server in front of you, and still have your database stored in the cloud, with your data and log files out of your disks.

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New Features in SQL Server 2016 – Dynamic Data Masking

July 23, 2015 by

There are many new features in SQL Server 2016, but the one we will focus on in this post is:

  • Dynamic Data Masking

Have you ever been on a website, where your personal information, ie. Social Security number or Credit Card number shown in clear text, ready for everyone to have a look at. Would it not be cool if your information was somehow masked by default, and not needed to rely on the application to mask the data before displaying it on the screen?

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Bcp and linked servers to Azure

July 13, 2015 by

Introduction

Sometimes, we need to use the command line to copy tables using the command line. In this new chapter, we will use the BCP command to copy tables from a local machine to the SQL Server in Azure. The BCP is a very fast bulk copy tools used for this purpose.

We will also learn how to create a Linked Server in our local machine to Azure. The Linked Servers are very powerful features of SQL Server to connect SQL Server to different Data Sources like Excel, MS Access, Oracle, MySQL, and several databases. In this example, we will connect to SQL Azure.

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New Features in SQL Server 2016 – Always encrypted

July 8, 2015 by

There are many new features in SQL Server 2016, but the one we will focus on in this post is:

  • Always encrypted

A feature many companies and developers have been waiting, is now finally being implemented in SQL Server. The feature is called Always Encrypted, the main purpose of this feature is to secure your data. Your data will only be visible to the ones logged into an application consuming the data, and will never be transferred from application to database unencrypted.

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New Features in SQL Server 2016 – Temporal Data Tables

July 6, 2015 by

There are many new features in SQL Server 2016, but the one we will focus on in this post is:

  • Temporal Database Tables

One of the many new features in SQL server 2016 is the built-in support for temporal data tables. This is a feature that many developers have been urging to have as a “out of the box feature” – and therefore many have developed their own ways of implementing the capability to store information about how data looked in a certain period of time.

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Backups to Azure – How can I do this?

July 3, 2015 by

With the evolution of the Cloud, specifically talking about Azure, SQL Server team started to take advantage of the new opened horizon. We already discussed pros and cons of send backups to Azure, now let’s check how to do this!

Following the “Hybrid Scenarios series”, we already discussed about the connectivity options, and pros and cons of store our backup files in Azure.

In this article, we will specifically talk about the two options that we currently have, involving Azure: Blob Storage and Managed Backups.

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SQL Server data mining – How to turn the data into valuable information

June 10, 2015 by

Introduction

In a past chat back in January 2015, we started looking at the fantastic suite of data mining tools that Microsoft has to offer. At that time, we discussed the concept of a data mining model, creating the model, testing the data and running an ad-hoc DMX query. For those folks that may have missed this article, the link may be found immediately below;

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SQL Server and BI – Creating a query for the revenue projection

June 5, 2015 by

A few days ago I received an interesting challenge from one of our clients. The lady was attempting to estimate her potential monthly revenue recognition for the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2015. The lady named Linda sells goods and services (each class yielding differing sales margins).

In the first portion of this two-part discussion, we shall be looking at the revenue projections for goods.

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How to use PowerShell to create a SQL Virtual Machine in Azure

June 4, 2015 by

Introduction

The first time that you create your VM in Azure manually using the UI is a very pleasant experience. However, when you have hundred and sometimes thousands of computers it is extremely exhausting and boring to create and configure it.

With PowerShell, it is possible to automate several administrative tasks and create scripts to automatically create VMs, enable ports, download and create remote desktop files, administer services, etc.

In this new chapter, we will show how to create a Virtual Machine in Azure with SQL Server installed using PowerShell.

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Using the “Row_Number” function and a WHILE loop to create the rolling average report

May 27, 2015 by

Introduction

A few days ago I received an email from a gentleman in the healthcare industry. He had read an article that I had previously published a few years back on a well known SQL Server website. Based on the original article, he requested a few ideas on how to expand the sample code to do a rolling three-month revenue summary, in addition to a rolling three-month revenue average.

In today’s get together, we shall be looking at doing just this!

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How to work migrate backups, files and scripts to/from the cloud using the command line

May 26, 2015 by

Introduction

Sometimes we need to move our local files, SQL scripts, backups from our local machine to Azure or vice versa. This can be done manually by accessing to Azure and using a browser, but there are other methods to automatically do this. This article describes the Microsoft Azure Storage Tool. This is a command line tool used to upload data to Azure from a local machine or to download data from Azure to our local machine. The article will describe step by step how to work with this tool.

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AlwaysOn Availability Groups – How to setup AG between a clustered and standalone instance (Part 3)

May 12, 2015 by

We have already configured our Availability Group, now we need to make it flexible and accessible. It’s time to check on how to create a listener in order to make a single access point for you AG!

In continuation to our previous article, we are going to pass to another phase of this setup, as we already have our database in sync and safe, or highly available, depending of the chosen mode/architecture.

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Multiple Server Management – Finding the Database Server

May 6, 2015 by

Every organization has at least one of those guys. You are the guy if you have been with the company long enough that you are very familiar with all of the servers in multiple environments. You can easily translate the SharePoint server into its server name, CL-DB-001-B\SP_2010 and you know all of the DNS aliases pointing to that server as well. Your super power also makes you a magnet for everyone in IT to come and ask you where this database is and what is on that server.

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How to work handle SQL Azure Databases with PowerShell

May 5, 2015 by

Introduction

PowerShell is a shell used specially to automate administrative tasks.

It is an incredible tool used to programmatically automate tasks like SQL Server tasks, Exchange tasks, Windows tasks, etc. It is very useful to integrate different Microsoft and sometimes non-Microsoft programs.

In this new tutorial, we will show how to install PowerShell for Azure and then how to use it. We will create some databases, edit database properties and retrieve database information using PowerShell.

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SQL Server Transaction Log – Part 3 – Configuration Best Practices

May 4, 2015 by

It has been a while since the last transaction log article has been published, so I hope you do remember where this series is heading to. In the former posts, we have examined the Log Structure and Write-Ahead Algorithm (part 1) and the Top Reasons for Log Performance Problems (part 2). Taking into consideration this knowledge, we will review some best-practices for transaction log configuration in order to decrease the chance of experiencing log bottlenecks.

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AlwaysOn Availability Groups – How to setup AG between a clustered and standalone instance (Part 1)

April 24, 2015 by

In this article we are going to explore how to configure an Availability Group between a clustered instance and a standalone instance, showing, step-by-step, how to setup a possible Disaster Recovery environment.

Introduced on SQL Server 2012, the Availability Groups brought the expectation to be an improved version of the database mirroring, which will be discontinued soon. The AlwaysOn Availability Groups was improved on SQL Server 2014, giving the capability of have more replicas, better troubleshooting possibilities and improving its availability. Comparing the Availability Groups with the database mirroring, in a very high level, we gained the possibility of have a listener to dynamically redirect the connection to the current active instance and also the capability of distribute the read workload between readable replicas. However, only the primary replica is able to write.

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