Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 06-05-2023 Live 360, the Missing Week, & the Pain in the Back

 Hello Dear Reader! Let's address the missing week.  Last week I was really behind due to the move.  We did not have a Monday video and despite my best efforts a blog did not get out.  It is in the draft's, partially written, and my goal is to try to publish it soon. However, other things are taking precedence.

For example, we moved A LOT of stuff. We had a full crew of able bodied kiddos, all recent High School graduates or current college students, and me.  I did my best to keep up with them.  But they are the heroes of the day.

26 foot truck started off empty at the old house and suddenly, and by suddenly I mean realizing that this new couch while cool was so heavy that it took 7 of us to lift it and get it on the truck and I-will-never-do-that-again had a realiztion that next time we would have movers or just sell the couch with the house because the idea of moving that thing can F@%& ALL THE WAY OFF.... Ahem..... as I was saying.... suddenly we were unpacking all of the large items at the new house. 

Thankfully the unpacking process went faster than the loading process, and by faster I mean we are also selling the bed's with the house; so that does it the house, the couch, and the beds, because we are not going up those stairs with everything again NO THAT IDEA CAN F...... Ahem....

Clearly the next move, movers will be employed.  Hopefully, that will not be for quite a bit of time.  There's still a lot of clean up to do.  There is a lot of things to do with the new house as well.  

Pictures to hang, er, re-hang in a more centered way that reflects less the mad-dash to occupy a house but rather the long term goal to live with artwork being less slightly off-kilter.

The next day we all appeared very sore and tired.  Everyone needed coffee before we could leave the house.  As a treat I took everyone to breakfast at the Walt Disney World's Steakhouse 71 inside of the Contemporary Resort. 

I booked this as a last minute thing.  I wanted to thank everyone for all the hard work.  You can see the amazing cast of family and friends as we awaited our table that morning.  The food was AMAZING.  Seriously, seriously, good.  Normally I take pictures.  That's my thing.  We were all so famished we ate with reckless abandon.  I had Walt's Prime Rib Hash with an over easy egg, we had an order of the Seasonal Pancakes for the table for all to split.  They were blueberry with lemon and they were divine. I had a bite of Sue's filet off the Steak and Eggs.  The whole family came away full, happy, and resolving to make it back to Steakhouse 71 for another breakfast and of course steaks!

When Sue and I took the truck back, we had a beautiful site in store.  It had rained on the way there and was starting to become intermittent.  As I hoped in her car to ride back home we looked up and saw a full end to end rainbow.  What a beautiful site, as we drove it actually became a double end to end rainbow and the end seemed to be at the area surrounding our new home.  Not a bad start.

That was last week. This weekend everything started out pretty good.  We were going to clean Saturday and then had plans for Sunday.  Late Saturday I did something wrong and the pain in my back started.  I was down for the majority of Saturday and Sunday as well.  Thankfully I had a muscle relaxer left over from a neck issue.  I remembered that and took it Sunday night before bed.  I'm doing much better today, but other than a really nice family dinner on Sunday.  Not a lot to write about.

This past week the Tales from the Field crew was busy cranking out videos for this week and next week, as well as coordinating some really cool content drops with the Microsoft Fabric PG for later this month.  

Alright, let's get over to that content!

WEDNESDAY 06-07-2023

On Wednesday we released Microsoft Fabric, VS Code, Notebooks, & Spark! Set it up, connect to a Workspace, EDIT, & Upload!! One of the big questions people have is how do I integrate my existing tools with Microsoft Fabric.

In this video I showed how to connect VS Code to your Microsoft Fabric workspace, how to download, modify, and upload a notebook.  If this interests you, I'd love to hear from you!

TUESDAY 06-06-2023

On Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table!  We started started talking about the weekend and how we wake up feeling sore for a variety of reasons and that Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman) has lost 40lbs!!!  WAY TO GO JOSH!!

As always the star of the show is the content:

Neeraj

• Introducing the end-to-end scenarios in Microsoft Fabric  by Ravs Kaur Twitter @Ravskkaur

Bradley

• Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization, Why?  by Derek Wilson Twitter @thesqlsith

Andres

• Announcing our improved experiment tracking tools in Azure Machine Learning by Ami Patel  

Josh

• Azure SQL DB Private Link / Private Endpoint - Connectivity Troubleshooting  by Sergio Fonseca Twitter @FonsecaSergio  

Neeraj

• AI and Xmind : How to Create A Mind Map with ChatGPT - Xmind: The Most Popular Mind Mapping App on The Planet.  by Jay Twitter @xmind

Bradley

• What’s New in SSDT 17.6: Ledger, Performance, Copilot by Subhojit Basak Twitter @subho4594

Andres

• Understanding ChatGPT Plugins: Benefits, Risks, and Future Developments  by Mary Newhauser  

Josh

• What is Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric  by Reza Rad Twitter @rad_reza

Neeraj

• Thought Leadership: What It Is and How to Master It in 2023  by Margarita Loktionova Twitter @semrush

Bradley

• CREATE AND VERIFY MICROSOFT FABRIC CAPACITY  by Dharmendra Keshari Twitter @Sachit_Keshari

Andres

• Build Intelligent Applications using ChatGPT & Azure Cosmos DB  by Mark Brown Twitter @markjbrown

Josh

• Deploy and run a Azure OpenAI/ChatGPT application on AKS via Bicep  by Paolo Salvatori  

WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader, we've got a video coming your way today.  Neeraj Jhaveri(@Twitter |@Neeraj_Jhaveri) is bringing you Microsoft Fabric Decision Trees, Deciding Which Service to USE!! today!

Tomorrow is our weekly Azue Data Community Round Table featuring content from the community!  If you want to add your content to the list we cover sound off in the comments below.

Wednesday we will have another MS Tech Bits and I hope we will see or interact with you sometime this week.

As always Dear Reader, Thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 05-15-2023 The Graduate & the Very BIG Week

MY WILL, MY BUG, MY GRADUATE

Just a little under 18 and one half years ago, William came into my life.  There are a lot of words to describe a new baby, but the one surround Will's birth is hard to quantify.  Don't get me wrong.  Joy, happiness, elation, wonder, awe, all-encompassing-love, all of those words were there.

Holding Will's hand on day 3

Eventually.  

Will's birth was the most intense 24 hours, and then week, of my life. 

William was my third child, so having one was not new to me, but this experience was.  Whereas his brother and sister had cried loudly, been weighed, and handed over in warming blankets to be cuddled with; William was rushed away.  He was born into this world with a collapsed lung.  

While I've spoken about this, I've never written about it before.  There is a lot flooding back to me just looking at the picture on the screen. He was born just before Christmas and I've always been thankful to the nurses, the doctors, and other stall at the Sentra Hampton Roads Hospital until we moved we used to bring them cookies every Christmas Eve, remembering those wonderful people there over night with us.  

The Graduate & Family

Let me skip forward in time.  William's lung miraculously reinflated.  After 5 days the oxygen hood came off, we were able to hold him, and feed him.  He came home a bright beautiful bouncing baby boy, and grew so very fast.  We have had lots of adventures.  

My Bug, my nickname for Will, loves roller coasters and amusement parks.  I think he is the only person in the family that loves theme parks as much as I do.  For the last 15 years he has been my roller coaster riding buddy.   

Last Thursday he graduated from High School.  Roller coaster riding buddy indeed.  That first hill was a big one.  He is off to college this Fall, but it feels like only yesterday I was holding that little hand.  One of my favorite quotes comes from the Little Buddhist Handbook, "The trouble IS you BELIEVE you have time".  Yes.  That is the trouble.

Next up, we will head to college orentationnext month.  Before then we will move, because we bought a house.  We've all been doing a lot of work on it getting it ready to move in.  William is leading the way on the painting front, having painted his room and helping is younger sister with hers.  The move is officially underway, not just because of the hours of work, or mounds of things we've already moved.  No, the way I know this is I am sore in places I forgot I could get sore.

THE BIG WEEK

We talked about it last week Dear Reader, but a very big week is upon us.  Microsoft Build starts today.  On Wednesday 5/24 & Thursday 5/25 there will be a massive Digital Event that will be simulcast across the Guy in a Cube, Power BI, and Azure Synapse YouTube channels starting at 9 am PST.

One hour before we will be live on the Tales from the Field YouTube channel.  Adam Saxton (Twitter | @awsaxton) of Guy in a Cube (Twitter | @GuyinaCube), Kal Yella & Bradley Schacht (Twitter | @BradleySchacht) from the Azure Synapse PG, and of course Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri), Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog), Andres Padilla (@Nodestreamio), and myself will be live.  

Here are the links to the pre-show:

May 24th 2023 - Microsoft Digital Event Pre-Show

May 25th 2023 - Microsoft Digital Event Pre-Show

For more read our pre-show announcement blog, Microsoft Digital Event Pre-Show: Azure FastTrack, Power BI CAT, & Azure Synapse Analytics PG. 

MONDAY 5-15-2023

On Monday my friend Daniel Taylor released an AMAZING video.  He walked through the process of taking Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Mainteance Solutions and using them with Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory.  

If you have Azure SQL Databases in your environment Azure SQL Database Maintenance Plans with DYNAMIC Azure Data Factory Pipeline!!  It is one of our most viewed videos ever, and Dan is very excited to add on to it!

WEDNESDAY 5-17-2023

On Wednesday I released 5 REASONS TO USE Azure SQL Managed Instance!!  This was our first list.  I had several different videos I've made and will make on Azure SQL Managed Instance.

I don't feel like enough people are aware of the service and what it can do.  If there is an item on the list you want to see a longer video on, let me know we always love the feedback!

TUESDAY 5-16-2023

On Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table featuring content from the creators in the Community for the Community!  We had a great conversation opening the show about Mother's Day weekend and the activities surrounding it for each of us, plus a Happy belated Mother's Day to all the MOM's out there!!!

As always the star of the show is the content, so here is the content by the WONDERFUL creators by order of appearence on the show:

Honorable Mention

·         Microsoft Digital Event Pre-Show: Azure FastTrack, Power BI CAT, & Azure Synapse Analytics PG   by  Bradley Ball, featuring Adam Saxton & Bradley Schacht & Guy in Cube Twitter @SQLBalls, @BradleySchacht, & @GuyInACube

Neeraj

Scaling strategies for large scale AzureCognitive Services deployments  by RK Iyer

Bradley

·         Announcing General Availability of Azure Data Studio extension SQL Database Projects by Steve Jones Twitter @Way0utWest via @SQLServerCentrl

Andres

·         Getting started with Azure Machine LearningResponsible AI components  by Ruth Yakubu Twitter @ruthieyakubu

Josh

·         Azure Resource Inventory by Claudio Merola Twitter @ClaudioMerola_

Neeraj

·         ChatGPT + Python+ Power BI   by Gabe Araujo, M.Sc. Twitter @AIGenesis3

Bradley

·         Script to Decode SQL Server Locking and BlockingWait Resources   by Eric Blinn Twitter @mssqltips

Andres

·         Pandas, Spark, and Polars - When To Use Which?  by Martin Karlsoon Twitter @HelloKarlsson

Josh

·         A Beginner's Guide to Database Reliability Engineering by Kovid Rathee Twitter @Kovid_R

Neeraj

·         How Microsoft can help you go passwordless thisWorld Password Day by Alex Weinert  Twitter @Alex_T_Weinert

Bradley

·         T-SQL Tuesday 162 – Execution plans according toChatGPT  by Hugo Kornelis Twitter @Hugo_Kornelis

Andres

·          Getting aGrip on Data and Model Drift with Azure Machine Learning  by Natasha Savic & Andreas Kopp

Josh

·         TDE: Database Backups and High Availability  by Matthew McGiffen Twitter @mattMcGiffen

WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader remember today is the kick off of MS Build.  If you haven't registered go do it, it takes a few minutes and it get's you free access to the big show.

On Monday we posted USE Azure Managed Identity to Backup Azure SQL Managed Instance to Blob Storage, NOT SAS Tokens!!  if you are using Azure SQL Managed Instance you want to go give that one a look, this is the way we should be doing our COPY_ONLY backups.

Today is the Azure Data Community Round Table, followed by our live pre-shows on Wednesday & Thursday.  PLUS a very special video drop this Wednesday.

We hope you get to spend some time with us this week and as always Dear Reader, Thank You for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 05-08-2023 Mother's Day, Big News for MS Build, & the recap

 Hello Dear Reader!!  We also have some really, really, BIG NEWS for next week!  It also happens that next week is Microsoft Build, make sure to register for free!  But that news is coming a little later today.

What's that..?  I can't drop a teaser at the begining and then not give you a little more?  That's fair.

...OK Dear Reader here's a sneak peak.  

We have not one, but TWO one hour live shows that will be on Wednesday May 24th & May 25th.  We also have TWO big guests.  

Brad Schacht (Twitter |@BradleySchacht) from the Azure Synapse Product Group AND Adam Saxton ( Twitter | @AWSaxton) aka one half of @GuyInACube will be there.  But that's really all that I can say until a bit later.  Other than, this is going to be fun & this is going to be BIG.  Enough about the future let's talk about last week.

This past week was Mother's Day, happy belated Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!  My parent's 50th wedding anniversary was this past year.  My siblings and I teamed up to buy them a cruise to Europe and they are out having a wonderful time!!  Because of this Mom was not here this Mother's Day but there are plenty of Mom's to be recognized in the family, more than just those that we get to see locally.  My niece had her first Mother's Day, congratulations Destiny!!  To celebrate we did what has become an annual tradition.  I make mimosa's, we take the ladies to the spa, and we all get pedicures.

Let's start with the mimosa recipe because it is a good one:

• 1/3 a champagne flute of Orange Juice
• 1/2 oz Don Julio Blanco tequila
• 1/2 oz Gand Marnier Cognac & Orange Liqueur
• fill remaining flute with good champagne like Veuve Clicquot

The pedicures started as a simple thing.  I took my wife and her Mom, my amazing mother-in-law Judith Gonzalez to get a pedicure and manicure.  The next year my Mom & youngest Sister came over and I included them.  Instead of just sitting there waiting I decided to join them for the pedicure and the tradition began. 

The next is that every year I get the kids to help me cook Mother's Day brunch.  The main course was by request.  Heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes.  I don't do anything simple.

In my house bananas are enjoyed by all.  So I made a banana's foster's syrup to go with the pancakes.  For this recipe you need banana's, butter, brown sugar, good dark rum (we used my Diplamatico), and maple syrup. 

You make banana's foster, flambe, then you add in the maple syrup and stir, finally ladling over finished pancakes.  Quick tip, the syrup is hot so if you cut fresh unsalted cream butter and put it on the pancake, then pour the syrup, the butter will be perfectly soft when the plate lands on the table.

Pedicures, pancakes, mimosas, all complete I set about fixing a toilet at the new house and installing a bidet.  All in all a very productive weekend.  Dear Reader, I hope you and your family had a great and Happy Mother's Day.  Ok, on to the recap.

MONDAY 05-08-2023

On Monday Andres Padilla (Twitter | @NodeStreamIO) & Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri) presented Computer Vision using Azure ML Studio!!  

In this video Andres walk through the steps to connect to Azure machine Learning Studio, Importing the required libraries, downloading the data, all the way through training your model.  

WEDNESDAY 05-10-2023

On Wednesday I released No-Code PERFORMANCE GAINS with Intelligent Query Processing in Azure SQL & SQL Server!!  I walk through 2 different ways to restore the World Wide Importers database into Azure SQL Database. 

Then we review how to provision a Serverless Azure SQL Database and why you want to use Serverless.  Using demos from Bob Ward's ( Twitter | @bobwardms) demos from his amazing SQL Server 2022 class that is available for free here!!  I then show how self-healing Persisted memory grant feedback works in Azure SQL Database by dropping the performance of a query from over 1 minute to less than 2 seconds!

This is in place for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server 2022 we just need to have our database compatibility level at 150 or above.

TUESDAY 05-09-2023

On Tuesday it's my FAVORITE half-hour of the week! The Azure Data Community Round Table with Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Andres Padilla, Neeraj Jhaveri, and myself.  We recapped the fun that we had at SQL Saturday Jacksonville.

After a conversation that covered Guardians of the Galaxy 3, The Flash, and Andre's amazing drone demo at SQL Saturday Jax we got to the real star of the show.  The content.  Here is the content covered on the show in the order of appearance:

Neeraj

• Microsoft Digital Event  by Tyler Mays-Childers, Guy in Cube Twitter @sposit & @GuyInACube

Bradley

• Using the New Open Source SQLCMD to Create Containers by Steve Jones Twitter @Way0utWest via @SQLServerCentrl

Andres

• Everything You Want to Know About Onnx by Janakiram MSV Twitter @janakiramm

Josh

• Four Different Ways to Incorporate Azure Synapse and PowerBI by Ginger Grant Twitter @desertislesql

Neeraj

• Build real-time dashboard with Power BI dataset produced by Azure Stream Analytics no-code editor  by Xu Jiang Twitter @xujx

Bradley

• Automating Database Maintenance on Azure SQL by Josephine (Branch) Bush Twitter @hellosqlkitty

Andres

• Supercharge Archive Content Discovery with ChatGPT and Azure Video Indexer  by Fardau Van Neerden Twitter @thefmister

Josh

• Building, Deploying, and Sharing a Remote Jupyter Book in Azure Data Studio  by Steve Hughes Twitter @dataonwheels

Neeraj

• Analytics Vidhya's Top 10 Blogs on Computer Vision in 2022  by Sanjana Rajpal Twitter @AnalyticsVidhya

Bradley

• The Blooming of AI Spring  by Patrick LeBlanc & Buck Woody Twitter @PatrickDBA & @BuckWoodyMSFT via @Spotify

Andres

• Microsoft’s New Azure Storage Mover Makes Cloud Migrations Easier  by Rabia Noureen Twitter @RabiaNoureen11 

Josh

• Monitoring SQL Server on Linux Part 1: Installing sysstat (Surviving Without Perfmon)  by Rick Lowe Twitter @dataflowe

WRAP IT UP

A couple of reminders this week.  Don't forget Dear Reader we have our Azure Data Community Round Table Tuesday 5/16 at 1 pm EST. Today we have an MS Tech Bits where our very own Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) walks us through how to use Ola Hallengren's scripts to set up Database Maintenance on Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory! 

Remember to stay tuned for that big news, and as always Dear Reader Thank You for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 04-24-2023 Steve Martin, Martin Short, & Tacos

 Hello Dear Reader!  I've realized something writting this blog.  I don't like to sit still.  It is very rare that I have a down weekend, and this weekend was no different.  My amazing wife did something really cool for me for Christmas.

You see I'm hard to shop for, or at least that's what I've been told.  I don't mean to be, but I am.  My birthday is in January.  When I was a kid you got presents on your bithrday and on Christmas.  Even though they are in different years, mine are so close together that for 10 months of the year there is nadda, then 2 months PRESENTS!

So with that in mind, if I want something I tend to buy it.  At this point in my adult life I'm just used to
that.  So Sue came up with something cool.  I love giving people experiences be it with food, giving advice or tips on Orlando, Disney, or Universal Studios or even when peoplke come over playing bartender, setting up events with friends (see last week).

Sue got me experiences, and what a time we've had.  That included this Saturday seeing Steve Martin & Martin Short live.  I was laughing so hard throughout the event, but it wasn't just comedy.  They are story tellers, showmen, and presetors. I couldn't help of people I know like Buck Woody (@Twitter | @BuckWoodyMSFT ), Patrick LeBlanc (Twitter | @PatrickDBA), or so many other amazing people in our community.  

The timing and the comfort of doing a show with someone you know well.  That made me think of Josh Ludeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman).  There is no one in this world that I've presented with as much as
Josh.  As I enjoyed the banter back and forth you could see the comfort that comes from time and practice.

It was a great time and a great day.  On Sunday we had that unusual down day.  I did some work in the office, getting ready for our soon to be move, and when it came to dinner I wanted out of the house. I snapped a picture while we were out at bartaco.  It has be come more and more rare to have all five of us at dinner together.  Looking at the picture afterwards I realized something importiant.  Serenity is now at the teenage point of making goofy faces in every family photo.

....it'll be a long two years, but I have plenty of her brother's from that period in time.  As the youngest this is the last time I'll have to go through this.  That acknowledgement came with a bittersweet feeling.

All right enough about the weekend, let's get to the round up!

MONDAY 4-24-2023

On Monday Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) dropped his first video on the channel.  Congratulations Dan!  He had a really great point of view, working with a customer he needed to solve the problem of teaching them how to backup SQL Server via URL.  The twist is the DBA's do not have rights to get SAS tokens, and so he had to teach the Azure Admins how to do that portion. 

 Dan walks through both tasks in this video to break down Backup to URL Seperation of duties.

WEDNESDAY 4-26-2023

On Wednesday I went in a different direction.  I had read a blog recently on how to pass a data frame to an Azure OpenAI model so you could ask questions about the data frame.  We had featured it in our Azure Data Community Round Table two weeks ago.  The blog was Make data more human with Azure OpenAI and Azure SQL by Valentina Alto (Twitter | @AltoValentina)

In this video Use OpenAI, SQL Managed Instance, Python, and VSCode to UNLOCK INSIGHTS About YOUR Data!!!, I walked through how to make this work using a data fram from a Domestic Box Office movie data table I had in a database. This was a lot of fun to walk through and the reception to this video has been really nice.

TUESDAY 4-252023

Of courese on Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table where we feature your content and it is always the star of the show. 

Here is the content coverd on the show in order of appearance:

Dan

• One Way to Provision an Azure Key Vault by Andy Leonard Twitter @AndyLeonard

Bradley

• Moving the SSISDB Catalog on a new SQL Server instance by Rajendra Gupta via SQLShack Twitter    @rajendragupta16 via @SQLShack

Andres

• Analysing Data with ChatGPT (Data Analysis and ML )  by Jesiel (JCharis) Emmanuel Agbemabiase  Twitter @JCharisTech

Josh

• Use ChatGPT to see multiple perspectives. An example: ORMs and database code  by Kendra Little  Twitter @Kendra_Little

Dan

• Troubleshooting Azure Data Studio by Deborah Melkin Twitter @dgmelkin

Andres

• MLOps on Databricks: A How-To Guide  by Rafi Kurlansik Twitter @kurlare

Bradley

• Data API builder – Introduction by Davide Mauri Twitter  @mauridb

Josh

• How to use the new dynamic format strings for measures in Power BI  by Meagan Longoria Twitter @MMarie

Dan

• PostgreSQL for the SQL Server DBA: The First Four Settings to Check  by Ryan Booz Twitter @ryanbooz

Bradley

• ChatGPT blew my mind with this Power BI scenario by Adam Saxton via Guy in a Cube Twitter  @awsaxton & @patrickdba via @GuyinaCube w @StephTBruno @shan_gsd

• Call back to Power BI datasets CI/CD (the easy-ish way)  by @StephTBruno & @shan_gsd

Andres

• AutoML Comparison in Databricks VS Azure Machine Learning by Mohammadsaleh Gharehdaghi Twitter @MG_cafe01

Josh

• The Top 10 Features of PostgreSQL Every Developer Should Know by Ajay Patel Twitter @Bond_AJ

WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader!  We have a BIG BIG WEEK!  Not only do we have a video by Josh Luedeman this Monday on how to Set up Windows with Chocolatey for Data Developers in SECONDS!! GIT, WSL 2, PowerShell! and another video by yours truly coming up on Wednesday, but this week is SQL SATURDAY JACKSONVILLE!!

On Friday Neeraj Jhaveri, Daniel Taylor, and myself will be teaching our DBA 101: A Full Day of Fundamentals, but Andres Padilla & Josh Luedeman will be presenting at the event as well.  The whole Tales from the Field crew is together live for the first time at a conference.

This is going to be a lot of fun.  We have 8 sessions on the agenda so come and attend, have a conversation with us, or grab a sticker while we have them!

We hope to see you in Jacksonville, but more than anything Dear Reader thank you for stopping by!

Thansk,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 03-27-2023 & MegaCON

Zach's 1st MegaCon 2011

 Hello Dear Reader!  This past week is a blur.  It was a tough week at work.  That sentence is an understatement, but its really all I can say at this point.  Monday sent me for a tail spin.  I was fresh off a weekend relaxing with my wife, planning events with my friends, and thinking things were pretty well set.  Life has a way of suprising you.

We powered through last week, had our Community Round Table, and dropped our new content.  Internally at Tales from the Field we did some Camtasia training, explored some new technology, and started some planning for the next 3 months.  I'm excited about those things.  Before I knew it the weekend was upon us.

12 Years Later MegaCon 2023

I'm really tough to shop for, I hear that a lot around Christmas time.  I don't mean to be difficult, but if I want something I tend to buy it.  Books, collectibles, comics, whiskey, gin, ....I digress.  This year my wife did something exceptionally cool for me.  She bought me things to give me experiences, one of those was ticket's to MegaCON in Orlando.  She bought me floor passes & and extra pass to share.  

I shared mine with my oldest son Zachary.  My first MegaCon ever was with Zachary when he was 7 years old.  When it comes to comic book conventions I've only ever been to two and he was with me at both of them.  He enjoyed this so much, I think this is a must do again next year!

One of the things I've always loved it the effort people put into their costumes, how generous they are with their time, and a willingness to celebrate with others.  That was as true when he was a little kiddo dressed in a Superman t-shirt as it was this year when he was dressed as Eren Yeager this year.

I hope you had a good weekend out there Dear Reader!  On to the wrap up.

WEDNESDAY 03-29-2023

On Wednesday we dropped our MS Tech Bits, Turn SQL to KQL IN SECONDS with Azure Data Explorer.  This video is based off the demo I did with Patrick LeBlanc (Twitter | @PatrickDBA) in our Session at SQLBits (Twitter | @SQLBits).

I love Azure Data Explorer, it is an incredibly powerful service for digesting log data and querying massive data sets and returning results in seconds.  It has so many capabilities and possibilities.  BUT... I don't know KQL and I don't know if I want to learn another language.  Fear not as I show in this video you can use the EXPLAIN statement to translate SQL to KQL that you can then run against your data sets.

I'm hoping this leads to peopel realizing that the bar for entry to this service is low, if you know SQL then you know KQL!

TUESDAY 03-28-2023

On Tuesday I once again teamed up with Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Andres Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio), & Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @neeraj_jhaveri) to review the AMAZING community content that you all produced!  If you missed that make sure to check it out.

The true star of the show is the content produced by the Community.  Here is the content in order that it was covered on the show:

Neeraj

• Multi-Column Distribution for Dedicated SQL pools is now GA! by Mariya Ali Twitter @mariyaali

Bradley

• How to use an Annotation in Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse Analytics Data Integration Pipeline?  by Alpa Buddhabhatti Twitter  @AlpaB7

Andres

• How to set up a Python virtual environment on Windows by Abhinav Saraswat 

Josh

• Announcing the Release of Azure Data Studio 1.4.2  by Erin Stellato Twitter @erinstellato

Neeraj

• Working with the GPT-4 and ChatGPT models on Azure by Derek Legenzoff Twitter @DerekLegenzoff

Bradley

• What is Visual ChatGPT?   by  Andy Sansom 

Andres

• Spark Monitoring  by Dustin Vannoy Twitter @dustinvannoy

Josh

• Turn your database into an API in minutes with Data API builder for Azure Databases  by Jasmine Greenway Twitter @paladique

Neeraj

• The Importance of SQL Saturdays  by Angela Tidwell Twitter @AngelaTidwell

Bradley

• KQL Series – ingesting data with Azure Data Factory by Hamish Watson Twitter   @TheHybridDBA

Andres

• Eliminate these 11 phrases that ‘make people question your credibility,’ says public speaking expert  by Christina Helena Twitter @christinahelena

Josh

• Azure Podcast - Episode 455 - Azure ML in the Real World  by Azure Podcast Twitter @AzurePodcast

WRAP IT UP

This week we have our Community Round Table on Tuesday where we will once again feature content from you the Azure Data Community!  We will be live at 1 pm EST, but you can always catch us after the broadcast on our YouTube Channel.

Wednesday we will have a video discussing the internals of Heaps, Clustererd Indexes, & Non-Clustered Indexes!

Time to say goodbye until next week.  Hope you have a great week and as always Dear Reader, Thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 02-27-2023 & Some Changes

 Hello Dear Reader!  Change is the one constant in life and over here at Tales from the Field we've been
hard at work making some changes. 

Over the last 5 months since we kicked off the show we've been experimenting with different content.  We started off with the hosting & interview show on Tuesday and the Community Round Table on Thursday.

We added a few sporadic technical videos, and then in February kicked off our MS Tech Bits every Wednesday.

We are data folk at heart, so after looking at the analytics, we were blown away!  In just one month of technical videos we had almost doubled our subscribers, and our viewership.

While we produced 2 Live Shows per week, we received just as many views and almost doubled our subscribers with one technical video a week.

Out of the Live Shows the most popular thing we do is the Community Round Table, and it is our favorite thing!  We get to talk about you and what you are doing.  We get to shine a light on new voices, wonderful established voices, or voices that you may not be aware.  Each of my cohosts brings an amazing and unique point of view to this endeavor.   I love learning new things or getting new videos to check out thanks to Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri),  Andrés Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio), Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog), & Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman). 

 I guess that is another change as well.  We appreciate the efforts of Daniel Taylor so much that he is now officially part of the team!  Dan is our go-to when we've had someone out of the office and he has an amazing technical mind.  We are lucky to have him as part of our crew.

We want to devote more time to producing technical videos. So this week we are moving our Community Round Table shows to Tuesday and we are pausing the interviews.

We will continue our focus on technical content and making sure that we are rolling out a few technical videos a week.

All based on the work we are doing with customers aka friends over "in the field", answering questions, or covering topics we've had to help our friends with.  A big important part of our job is also our internal work in Azure Engineering, also technically our field.  Hence our name, Tales from the Field.

This week and next week we will be adding a treat of Monday videos and some shorts relating to interviewing for SQL DBA jobs. 

In some fun news we've had the logo refreshed, some laptop stickers made prior to SQLBits & SQL Saturday Jacksonville #1041!  If you are attending those events and want a sticker please find me and I'm taking about 200 so find me I will be happy to share them!

After SQLBits we will be working on a new channel trailer, getting the logo incorporated into our header, and adding it to our video trailers.  We really love it and the graphic designer did a bang-up job!

Ok, enough from me.  On to the Recap!

TUESDAY 2-28-2023

We had the AMAZING Vicky Harp (Twitter | @VickyHarp) on the Tuesday show for an interview.  The subject was Building a Brand.  Vicky is a Principal Group Program Manager for the Windows Developer Experience Team, Vicky has also had a hand in building some of the product, that if you use SQL Sever, you know & love.

This was a fantastic episode were we discussed the concepts of external or community branding as well as internal or building your brand inside of the company you work for.  Both of these brands are ESENTIAL to success.

We covered advice and guidance that Vicky had for people new in their careers and also for those that had been around for a while.  Make sure you check it out!

WEDNESDAY 3-31-2023

On Wednesday we launched our latest MS Tech Bits Make Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose FASTER!!I  On a personal note, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RESPONSE!  As of right now this is the MOST watched video on our channel and it has not yet been out a week.

If you liked this video, we have some really great content planned at the channel.  We hope you will check it out if you haven't already.

THURSDAY 3-2-2023

On Thursday we had our Community Round Table featuring data from you the Azure Data Community or the community at large. 

This is always a fun show where I get to hang out with my friends and share the things we've all found interesting over the past week.  The star of that show is the content, so without further ado.

Content in order of appearance:

Neeraj

• The Importance of Personal Branding to Career Growth Plus 12 Tips for Branding Success by Jessica H Hernandez Twitter @GreatResume

Bradley

• DataChick's Secure Your Azure SQL Data Challenge By Karen Lopez Twitter @DataChick

Andres

• How To Fix Stream Lag: 5 Reasons You are Lagging by Live Streaming Tech Twitter @tech_streaming

Josh

• Announcing Azure Data Tech Groups v2.0  by Rie Merrit Twitter @IrishSQL & @AzureSQL

Neeraj

• Using OpenAI GPT in Synapse Analytics by Thomas Costers 

Bradley

• Programming Databases with T-SQL for Beginners by Buck Woody & Marisa Mathews Twitter @BuckWoodyMSFT, @AzureSQL

Andres

• Calling REST endpoints from T-SQL by Rob Farley Twitter @rob_farley, @IrishSQL, @AzureSQL

Josh

• Understanding Change Data Capture for Azure SQL Database Part 1 by Greg Low Twitter @greglow

Neeraj

• Personal Branding for Students: 7 Tips You Should Know by Nate Torres

Bradley

• Extracting Data from the AFAS REST API with Azure Data Factory By Koen Verbeeck Twitter @Ko_Ver

Andres

• How I Built A Streaming Analytics App With SQL and Delta Live Tables by Richard Tomlinson Twitter @tomlinsonr

Josh

• SQL Server 2022: Measuring Extended Events Performance Impacts by Jonathan Kehayias Twitter @SQLPoolBoy

WRAP IT UP

This week is a big week Dear Reader. We have technical content dropping this Monday and next Monday.  This Monday we have an Introduction to OpenAI by Andrés & Neeraj!  We have our Tuesday Round Table show featuring maybe your content!?!  

We have our Wednesday MS Tech Bits, this will be yours truly with an Introduction to SQL Wait Stats and we are dropping our SQL Interview shorts all this week.

Most important, Thank You Dear Reader for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad