Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 02-20-2023

Hello Dear Reader! We had a beautiful weekend here in Florida.  Spring is in the air, mainly because the temperature is ranging between 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  This has lead to some rather pronounced sneezing on my morning exercise routine.  The type of sneezing that has scared children and small animals.

It was a really nice weekend, enjoying the tale end of February before a busy March.

This was a good time to get some recordings done, have some outings with the Mrs., and meet the gentleman for a morning of golf.   I'm not good at golf, quite terrible actually. It is a good excuse to spend two hours with friends talking about life, family, and generally trading our perspectives on things.

As we say goodbye to Winter and begin to focus on Spring it seemed like last week was indeed the perfect way to send off February with a bang.

Off to the wrap up.

Tuesday 2-21-2023

On Tuesday we had a little bit of Christmas in February with out Elfster show.  Our good friend Lonnye Bower (Twitter | @ilovesql) had the brilliant idea to have a gift exchange!  Andrew Nathan (Twitter | @AndrewNathan05) & Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) were quick to sound off their excitement and we planned our eventual holiday extravaganza!  

We all were super excited for this.  No technical topics in this show, just a bunch of friends joking around, playing Secret Santa, and opening presents.  If you are looking for some fun and a laugh, please tune in.  This was a really fun time!

Wednesday 2-22-2023

On Wednesday we dropped our latest MS Tech Bits.  These are videos that will cover different Azure technologies and how you can incorporate them.  Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri) & Andrés Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio) walk us how to use BICEP templates from our GitHub repository to walk you through deploying Pattern 1 in order to deploy you Azure Synapse Analytics environment.       

This is a great video and it is just the start, personally I'm really looking forward to additions to this series.

Thursday 2-23-2023

On Thursday we had our Community Round Table featuring amazing content by you the Azure Data Community & sometimes great authors from our community at large!

Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman) wore his hat from the Tuesday show, and we kicked off reviewing the content our team had seleted for the week.  But you don't want to here me talk about it, here are the links!

Links in order of appearence on the show:

Neeraj

• A complete CI/CD experience for Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022  by Kevin Chant Twitter @kevchant

Bradley

• SQL Transaction Processing and Analytic Performance Price-Performance Testing By William McKnight & Jake Dolezal via gigaom Twitter @gigaom

Andres

• Streamline your Edge AI development and operations with KAN  by Olivier Bloch Twitter @obloch

Josh

• Script to Install the Tools I Use on My Jumpbox by Tracy Boggiano Twitter @TracyBoggiano

Neeraj

• Securing your Synapse environment  by Liliam Leme Twitter @LemeLiliam

Bradley

• Synapse Espresso: Optimize Delta Table performance with Optimize & ZOrder Indexing by Stijn Wynants Twitter @SQLStijn

Andres

• Train your Model in AML, score it in ADX by Adi Eldar

Josh

• Sql-action v2 GitHub Action for Azure SQL Database deployments   by Kevin Chant Twitter @kevchant

Neeraj

• Deploying Azure Bicep Templates Using The Azure CLI  by Chris Pietschmann Twitter @Build5Nines

Bradley

• json_object and json_array Functions SQL Server 2022 Tutorial  By Daniel Calbimonte Twitter @MSSQLTips

Andres

• I Wanna Go Fast!)Performance Optimization Tips & Tricks for Azure Data and App Services  by Marcelo Silva & Victor Santana

Josh

• Using the Dedicated Administrator Connection with SQL Server in a Docker Container  by Joey D'Antoni Twitter @jdanton

WRAP IT UP

We've got a big week planned this week.  Vicky Harp (Twitter | @vickyharp ) Principal Product Group PM Manager will be on the Tuesday show!

On Wednesday I have some MS Tech Bits that will be posted, on Thursday we have the Community Round table featuring data from the Azure Data Community, and it maybe featuring your content!  Let us know if you are writing a blog, producing a video, or doing something noteworthy in the community! 

As always Dear Reader, Thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 01-31-2023

 Hello Dear Reader!  After a weekend with a lot of activities, it was a down week here at Casa Balls.  Woke up and walked a lot.  I'm still not back to running.  A groin pull is not something I've had a lot of experience with, yet it entered my life in December and I cannot wait for it to leave.

I miss running, last year I ran 755.1 kilometers.  Right now I can walk, as long as my pace is not too quick, and I can ride a bike.  The key is really to get out in the morning, take in some sunshine, and get the blood flowing.  

If I can do that I find that helps put me in the proper headspace to be productive during the day.  One of my favorite things as of late it take pictures.

In the morning I set out and take pictures as I walk around the neighborhood.  Even when I did "run", it was actually interval running.  The reason I note that is I tend to take pictures when I'm in the walking portion of my interval run.  With the exception of my phone, I do not carry a camera on me.  I still  manage to get some really great pictures of the day.  

So this weekend was a lot of walking, cooking, and hanging out.  I hope you had a great weekend, and made it out to enjoy some time outside or inside amongst family and friend. On to the re-cap!

Tuesday 1-31-2023

On Tuesday we had Andrew Nathan (Twitter | @AndrewNathan05) Principal Engineering Manager from the Azure FastTrack Core team was our special guest.  We discussed the Zero Trust Security imitative by Microsoft that all customers should consider when building their architecture.  We also discussed International Travel Tips ahead of SQLBits!  SQLBits is the largest Microsoft focused Data Community conference in Europe.  This year it is Hybrid which means Dear Reader, if you cannot make it in person you could still attend this fantastic conference.

We played our hosting show, I was the host this week!  Want to know who won?  Check out the video above to enjoy the show and find out!

Wednesday 2-1-2023

NEW THIS YEAR! We will be dropping weekly technical content every Wednesday, our MS Tech Bits.  This week it was my turn to produce a video.  I was working with a friend and they wanted to know how to troubleshoot deadlocks they were experiencing.  The first step in that process is understanding what is a deadlock and how to find them when they occur.  So I made this video How to Monitor Deadlocks in Azure SQL Managed Instance to help.

This is a fun little video where I walk you through the process.  Also there is a bit of an easter egg in this vide.  If the shirt I'm wearing on the video looks familiar that's because I wore this in another blog post, and it means a lot to me.

Thursday 2-2-2023

On Thursday we had our Community Round Table.  This is one of my favorite shows every week because we get to give a shout out to the great content producers in the community.  People writing blogs, producing videos, or even GitHub repositories that help people get things done.  It's just amazing.

Here's a list of the content featured on the Round Table in order of appearance:

Neeraj

• International Travel Tips: 26 Things to Know Before Going Overseas by Clark Howard Twitter @ClarkHoward

Bradley

• Network, Develop & Share @ SQLBits 2023 | Data Exposed Exclusive   By Rie Irish & Simon Sabin Twitter @IrishSQL & @simon_sabin & @SQLBits

Andres

• How to integrate Azure Databricks with Azure Machine Learning for running Big Data Machine Learning jobs?   by Pieter Sterkens

Josh

• Introducing 'Managed AirFlow' in Azure Data Factory  by Avishek Narain Twitter @narainabishek

Neeraj

• 12 Tips to Prepare for an International Trip by Benét J. Wilson Twitter @benetwilson

Bradley

• Tempdb Performance Improvements in SQL Server 2022 are Dramatic by Monica Rathbun Twitter @SQLEspresso

Andres

• Unleashing the power of AI with Azure OpenAI: A simple guide to get started.  by Meer Alam Twitter @alamMeer

Josh

• Beginner's Guide to Azure Data Factory by Catherine Wilhelmsen Twitter @cathrinew

Neeraj

• International Travel to and from the United States   | CDC by The CDC Twitter @CDCgov

Bradley

• Ready to be a Kusto Detective with Azure Data Explorer? By Patrick Leblanc & Guy In A Cube Twitter @PatrickDBA & @GuyInACube

Andres

• MLflow 2.0 and Azure Machine Learning by Facundo Santiago Twitter @santiagofacundo

Josh

• When to have Multiple Data Lakes   by James Serra Twitter @jamesserra

WRAP IT UP

And now we draw the blog to a close.  We have a great line up this week!  Make sure to tune in Tuesday at 1 pm EST for a very special guest.  Wednesday we have our second MS Tech Bit coming up with my co-hosts Andres Padilla and Neeraj Jhaveri covering Tips and Tricks for Migrating Azure Data Lake Gen 1 to Gen 2.

On Thursday we will wrap up our week with our Community Round Table also at 1 pm EST.  I hope you all have a wonderful week, and as always Dear Reader.  Thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

 

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 01-23-2023

 Hello Dear Reader!  It's been a while since I had time to sit down and write out a Monday re-cap

This past week was my birthday week.  With all the stress of the current modern world it was really nice to have some dedicated family time.  

The fun started on my actual birthday, my wife gave me an amazing birthday present for me and my oldest son to go to the Mega-Con comic book convention this year!

My parents drove over and took me plus my youngest son to lunch at Yellow Dog Eats, an AMAZING BBQ joint nearby.  

That evening the family went out to eat, we played games, checkers, and topped it off at home with a Double Fudge Coca-Cola cake.  Not on the list of approved items for diabetics, but the goal is to have a little fun.  This was genuinely one of my best birthday.

This weekend we went to Disney Springs with a group of 10 friends.  We headed over to Splitsville Lanes and to go bowling.

The music was surprisingly good, food was solid, and the drinks were flowing.  Which is good, because none of us will becoming professional bowlers anytime soon.

We walked around, enjoyed some live music, and because it was Disney, the shopping.  Enough about that, let's move on to the recap!

Tuesday 1-24-2023

We Had Paloma Garcia (Twitter | @PalomaGarcia40) Sr. Support Engineer from the Azure SQL PaaS Solutions team on the show!  The theme of the show was IT Troubleshooting Skills!

We had a lot of fun, some insightful, and some surprising conversations.  In a very lucky turn of events, I won the hosting duties and will be the host for the Tuesday show on 1/31/2023!

Thursday 1-27-2023

On Thursday we had the Community Round Table!  

Our good friend Dan Taylor joined the show in place of Josh Luedeman who was out for the day.   The guys surprised me by singing "Happy Birthday", very sweet of them to do so, and we covered amazing community content!

Here's a list of all the content covered in order of appearence:

Brad 

All of Paloma Garcia’s Blogs -   (dropdown and select written by) by Paloma Garcia 

Neeraj

  6 Best Practices for Effective IT Troubleshooting by Robert Reselman (Twitter |@Rapid7)

Bradley

Azure Analysis Services Migration to Power BI Premium By Andy Cutler (Twitter | @MrAndyCutler)

Andres

  Application Insights telemetry in Azure Functions  by Orestis Meikopoulous (Twitter|@ormikopo)

Dan

Troubleshooting SQL Server Connection Errors  by Mike Wolfe (Twitter | @NoLongerSet)

Neeraj

Defining Customer Support in 2023: 7 Keys of Modern Support  by Declan Ivory (Twitter | @Intercom)

Bradley

Azure Synapse Analyzer Report to monitor and improve Azure Synapse SQL Dedicated Pool performance by Sanjay Raut

Andres

  Ingesting Time Series Data  by Luis Delgado

Dan

  TSQL Scripts for Troubleshooting Common Issues with SQL Server  by Esther Xin

Neeraj

  6 Ways to Enhance Your Problem Solving Skills Effectively   by Zoe B (Twitter|@Slifestrategies)

Bradley

  SQL Managed Instance: Transactional Replication By Sasa Popovic (Twitter |@SasaPopovicMSFT)

Andres

  ML Inference on Edge devices with ONNX Runtime using Azure DevOps+MLOps   by Wolfgang Pauli (Twitter | @neurobabel)

Dan

  The Art of Troubleshooting for Customer Support Professionals  by Sarah Chambers (Twitter | @sarahleeyoga)

WRAP IT UP

Quick Programing Note: We have to move the Elfster show.  Coordinating schedules with so many wonderful people can be tricky.  But everyone who is on our list is exceedingly important to one another and we have to make sure everyone is there!  So we are moving the Elfster show to Tuesday February 21st.  So a little Christmas in February! 

Alright Dear Reader, I'm heading out for some quick morning exercise before the day begins in earnest.  We appreciate you and hope you have a wonderful day!

As always, Thank You for stopping by!

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 10-24-2022

 

Hello Dear Reader! This past week was an extremely fun time over at the Tales From The Field show!  Fall is here, the leaves change and fall in Florida very quickly, & today is Halloween!!!  Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year.  It is also my daughter's birthday, which makes it extra special!

This is my favorite holiday because everyone can participate in the holiday, the cost to celebrate is low, & everyone is there to give freely.  We will be giving out candy bags, and the house is decorated in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme!  

Decorated while I listened to Wrexham AFC streaming in my earbuds.  Nothing better than listening to Mark Griffiths (Twitter | @m_griffiths92) talk about the pies or bursting my ear drums as Paul Mullin scores away!

Hopefully all of you will have a fantastic, candy filled, costume wearing day today!

"So Balls", you say, "what happened on the show last week!?!".

Ahh, thank you Dear Reader for keeping me on track!  Off to the recap!

TUESDAY OCTOBER 25TH

We had the great Karen Lopez (Twitter | @DataChick) on the show.  Karen is an 11 time Microsoft Data Platform MVP, a NASA Datanaut, & a Senior Project Manager & Architect at InfoAdvisors.  As the world re-opens and we look at traveling for work and conferences again, we discussed Tips & Tricks as well as #KarensTravelStories. 

Josh hosted the show.  I shared the crazy story of my bachelor party flight to New Orleans, somehow I was disqualified, Andres WON!!  Andres will be the host next Tuesday!!  There was something weird going on about Andres, Josh, and a VENMO payment.... let's just say Dear Reader, I have my suspicions. 

THURSDAY OCTOBER 27TH

We had Chris Ayers (Twitter|@Chris_L_Ayers) join us for the Community Round table on Thursday. 

Chris is a Senior Azure FastTrack Customer Engineer that is DevOps & Developer focused.  Chis is part of the same FastTrack team that Neeraj, Josh, Andres, & myself are all part of. We talked about DevOps Days Tampa Bay 2022 and some of the upcoming presentations and events Chris has planned. 

We covered a ton of great content on the show, here's a summary of the posts:

Neeraj 

a. MY BEST 61 TRAVEL TIPS TO MAKE YOU THE WORLD’S SAVVIEST TRAVELER  by Nomadic Matt Twitter @nomadicmatt 

Bradley 

a. Starting with brand new Azure AD Lifecycle Workflows – Part 1by Pim Jacobs Twitter @PimJacobs89 

Josh 

a. The Points Guy by The Points Guy Twitter @thepointsguy 

Andres 

a. Deriving real-time intelligence about the physical world with Azure Percept and Azure Digital Twins  by Nabeel Muhammad Twitter @abrsazi 

Neeraj 

a. Parallelism in SQL Server Execution Plan by Amhad Yaseen Twitter @AhmadZYaseen 

Bradley 

a. Synapse Delta Lakehouse and Power BI Enterprise Big Data Worked Example. Part 1: Start With the End in Mind  by Rishi Sapra Twitter @rsaprano 

Josh 

a. Tech Conference Travel Tips by Una Kravets Twitter @Una 

Andres 

a. Securing access to Azure Data Lake Gen 2 from Azure Databricks by Nick Hurt Twitter @Nicholas_Hurt  

Neeraj 

a. More Consistent Execution Plan Timings in SQL Server 2022 by Paul White Twitter @SQL_Kiwi 

Bradley 

a. Mastering DP-500: Synapse Serverless SQL and file types – the ultimate guide!  by Nikola Ilic Twitter @DataMozart 

Josh 

a. 16 Short Funny Travel Stories That'll Make You Laugh Out Loud by Jessie Festa Twitter @JessonaJourney 

Andres 

a. Best practices for designing a Microsoft Sentinel or Azure Defender for Cloud workspace by Tiander Turpijn Twitter @TianderTurpijn 

 WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader it's time to land this plane.  Put your tray tables in their upright and locked positions, take small children by the hand, and DON'T FORGET we are live this Tuesday & Thursday at 1 pm EST!  Comment on the stream on any of our Twitter pages, Youtube Show page, or my Linkedin page as we are streaming and your comments will make it onto our show!

As always Dear Reader, thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 10-10-2020

 Hello Dear Reader! We had a big week on Tales From The Field!  We've got some great stuff planned for you this week, but before we get to the Live shows tomorrow 10/18 & 10/20, I wanted to do a quick recap of last week.  

Ignite is always an exciting time, announcements are in the air, and we have truly arrived at what I like to call Fall Conference season.  This is a lot like pumpkin spice season, but technology flavored. ...it still has a lot to do with Starbucks as we are all in line to get coffee.

Ignite returned to an in-person gathering at the Washington State Convention Center for the first time since 2019 when it was in Orlando.  I always love when it is in-person.  Hopefully, we have more in person with a streaming component next year.  It is really impowering to allow the millions at home who cannot attend in person to attend remotely. 

All right enough talk, let's get to the shows!

TUESDAY 10/11 SHOW

Last week was Microsoft Ignite and we kicked off our show with TWO big guests.  We had Niko Negebauer Sr. PM from the Azure SQL Managed Instance Product Group, (Twitter | @NikoNeugebauer) join us on the show!    For years Niko was a Microsoft MVP, contributing to the community as a chapter leader, Presidente of the TUGA in Portugal, a PROLIFIC & amazing blogger.  Presenter at many international conferences, and user groups.

We also had Anna Hoffman, (Twitter| @AnalyticAnna) Sr. PM from the Azure SQL Data Platform join us!  Anna is a Data Scientist, The Host of Data Exposed, the co-host of Something Old Something New which is a series about the math behind data science & how it applies to Azure ML, presenter at International conferences, one of the most recognizable faces in the world of Azure Data. 

I was the host!  Neeraj won!!  We discussed our favorite Ignite experiences and Niko flipped the scripted and asked us questions.  Check it out at the link above.

THURSDAY SHOW

On the Thursday show we had the Community Round table and covered Community & Ignite content all in on location.  Here's a summary of what we covered on the show:

Josh

a.10 for 10: My 10 Favorite SQLPerformance Posts  by Aaron Bertrand Twitter @AaronBertrand

Bradley

a. On the Floor of Microsoft Ignite: Day 1 Announcement Thoughts by Joey D’Antoni Twitter @jdanton

Neeraj

a. Microsoft Ignite 2022: What to Expect from This Year’s Event by Joe Kuehne Twitter @BizTechMagazine

Andrés 

a. Azure IoT Edge Integration with Nvidia Deepstream by Emmanuel Bertrand Twitter @emmanuel_B_V

Josh

a. The Dangers of Dynamic SQL and How to Avoid Them by Rob Farley Twitter @rob_farley

Bradley

a. Microsoft Ignite 2022 – Azure Data Platform Update by Wolfgang Strasser Twitter @wstrasser

Neeraj

a. Ignite 2022- New Features and Updates for Ignite 2022 by  David Allen Twitter @onmsft @davidpaj1978

Andrés 

a. High Performance Real Time Object Detection on Nvidia Jetson Tx2 by Prof. Lee Stott Twitter  @lee_stott

Josh 

        a. Stop Using Production Data for Development by Thomas LaRock Twitter @SQLRockstar

Bradley

a. Azure SQL and Azure SQL Managed Instance - Backup retention polices Loading …  by Paloma Garcia Martin Twitter @PalomaGarcia40

Neeraj

a. Introducing-rankx-in-dax by Marco Russo Twitter @marcorus

Andrés 

a. Microsoft Ignite Big Book of News 

Josh

a. New PowerBI Implementation Guidance by Melissa Coates Twitter @SQLChick

Neeraj

a. Incremental Refresh and Hybrid tables in Power BI: Load Changes Only by Reza Rad Twitter @Rad_Reza

Bradley

a. Introducing assessment tooling for Oracle database migration to Azure SQL and PostgreSQL- Preview  by Neel Ball 

WRAP IT UP & SHOUT OUT 

We love our Sr. Escalation Engineers at Microsoft.  These folks are our hero's and our firefighters.  When you have a big issue, you call and put in a ticket.  These are the folks that come in when that ticket is escalated.  One of the blogs that we featured was by Paloma Garcia Martin and she was so kind to give us another Shout Out on their team blog last week!  

Speaking of, what a GREAT TEAM BLOG!!  It is the Azure Database Support Blog and you should go and check it out!

More guests and more great content to come this week, hope to see you there!  And as always, thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up

 Hello Dear Reader!

It's been a while.  I've been busy working with a few colleagues on our show Tales from the Field.  This has been a learning experience.  

I've had to brush off some old skills on graphic design, bone up on some new skills namely how to run a YouTube channel & Video Editing!

This week we had two amazing shows.  First up was our Tuesday show where the Hosting Duties are on the line!

Let me quickly back up, the Tuesday show is a bit of a game.  We have a Host.  The Host pick's the topic.  The Host then awards points or deducts points based on how we do.  

Sometimes we also have a guest.  Our guest this week was Bradley Schacht Principal Program Manager from the Azure Synapse Analytics Product Group.

"But Balls", you say.  "What's a Product Group?"

GREAT QUESTION Dear Reader!! At Microsoft teams that produce products are in our Engineering Organization, and they produce a product for example SQL Server, Azure Synapse, Azure Data Factory.  Each of those teams are called Product Groups.  So when I say, "Someone is a member of <insert product here> Product Group", that means they work on the team that builds or shapes the future of that product.

These are the people you want to know.  Bradley joined the Tuesday show and as the guest he also gets to award points.  Whoever has the most points, wins the hosting duties, and will be the host for the next show and they will pick the topic.

So on Tuesday Hosting Duties were on the line and I WON!!  Here's a link to the show below.

This is exciting because next week is Microsoft Ignite, don't forget to sign up it's free!!  So I get to host next week, pick the topic.  Plus we have TWO special guests.  Anna Hoffman, host of Data Exposed, & Niko Neugebauer from the Azure SQL Managed Instance Product Group!

On Thursday we had Hope Foley guest host for my buddy Josh Luedeman.  Josh was out with a bad case of Pizza is better than Ninja's..... best explained by this clip from the Tuesday show.

Back to Thursday.  We had Hope Foley & special guest Lonnye Bower for the Community Round Table!

Sooo much great community content from the round table.  Here's a list of that content!

Hope 

a.  Using the Dedicated Administrator Connection with SQL Server in a Docker Container – Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting (dcac.com) by Joey D’Antoni @jdanton 

Bradley 

a. Sentiment Analysis using Azure Synapse and Azure Cognitive service  by Alpa Buddhabhatti @AlpaB7 

Neeraj 

a.  New Diagram: Power BI Datamart Overview — Coates Data Strategies By Melissa Coates @SQLChick 

Andres  

a. The Moment: Azure Percept, Stream Analytics and PowerBI all work together!  By Charles Elwood @charleselwoodbi 

Hope 

a. PolyBase 2022 and Cosmos DB (Core API)  by Kevin Feasel @feaselkl 

Bradley 

a. New informative Livy errors codes for Apache Spark in Azure Synapse Analytics! by Avinanda Chattapadday 

Neeraj 

a. Metadata Management by Dr Victoria Holt @victoria_holt 

Andres 

a. External Apache Hive metastore, Azure Databricks, Azure SQL  by Benjamin Perkins @csharpguitar 

Hope  

a. EDU Azure Hour 

Bradley 

a. Rounding out the lakehouse with the GOLD layer in Azure Synapse By GuyInACube, Patrick Leblanc, Stijn Wynatts @Guyinacube @patrickdba @sqlstijn 

Neeraj 

a. pandas.DataFrame.drop_duplicates and SQL Server unique constraints  by Meagan Longoria  

Andres 

a. Conference DevOpsDays Tampa Bay – 2022  by Chris Ayers Twitter @chris-l-ayers 

b. DevOpsDays Tampa Bay – Website 

WRAP IT UP

That's it for me Dear Reader.  Good to speak to you again!  As always, thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad