Practical guides and insights for modern data practitioners
In this post I want to cover the recent certification announcement by Microsoft and the Coronavirus outbreak. Because both are relevant topics at the moment. Now, for the benefit of those who missed the announcement. Last week Microsoft announced that the MCSA, MCSD and MCSE certifications will be retired at the end of June. From … Read more
To try something new, I thought for a few blog posts I would write a fictional tale about lessons learned by a time travelling SQL Server DBA. Because at the start of a new year people tend to look into the past and the future. I decided it would be a good idea to cover … Read more
I thought I would share my experience of recording my SQL Server related services in Azure video. For those of you who do not know, that was the title of the video I did as part of last year’s Azure Advent calendar. It was the first ever video like this I have filmed. I want … Read more
For this year’s Azure Advent Calendar, I decided to cover SQL Server related services in Azure. Because I like to think as myself as a member of both the Azure family and the Data Platform family, I wanted to cover a topic which would crossover between the two communities. Now, this post is one of … Read more
Recently there’s been a few questions asked online about slow clustered index rebuilds within SQL Server for rowstore indexes. So, I thought I would cover some of the reasons that I have experienced here. In truth, some of these I discussed in a series I posted last year about maintaining larger SQL Databases better. You … Read more
In this post I want to cover deploying SQL Server services in Azure with Visual Studio subscription. Because somebody made a comment on Twitter previously which got me thinking. It was about the fact that they could not afford to run one of the SQL Server related services in Azure. So, I thought it’d be … Read more
My personal Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates overview is an follow up to my last post about studying for MCSD Architect certification in my last post here. During this study I started using ARM templates in detail, and I believe the use of these templates can benefit people working with Azure or/and those studying for … Read more
This post is about the work I put into gaining the MCSD Azure Architect certification before it was retired by Microsoft. Now I will admit this month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic was certainly a tough one to decide writing about. It’s about providing an example of how you kept on going when the going got tough. … Read more
You might ask yourself why I write about starting to use Azure for the Data Platform professional? Especially when a lot of Data Platform professionals already use the Azure Portal and take the knowledge of how to use it for granted. However, I found out that using the Azure Portal is not as common as … Read more
I thought I would provide some study tips for SQL Server and Azure exams. Mostly because this has been a popular topic both online and in real life. Hopefully, this will help ease the burden with yourselves. For those of you who aren’t aware I have gained a fair few certifications in these areas. In … Read more