Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 02-06-2023

 Hello Dear Reader!  We had a great last week on Tales from the Field.  This weekend was also a really nice one.  On Saturday a group of friends gathered to share some friendship, conversation, and remember a dear friend that is no longer with us at one of my favorite places in Orlando, Lee & Rick's Oyster Bar.  

Lee & Rick's has been around since 1950 and it doesn't look like much has changed in that time.  That's just the way I like it.  My friends Juan, Dan Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog), Brad Schacht (Twitter | @BradleySchacht), and myself had a great time.

That wasn't the only thing going on this past weekend as it was also Super Bowl day.  That's sports ball  for the non-sports followers.  The one day of the year that even non-sports ball fans will at least watch the game to see some of the best commercials we will get all year.  Not to mention the halftime show is always amazing.  It did not disappoint!  The game was incredible, two amazing teams playing their hearts out.  Or as I would translate to my friend Buck Woody (Twitter | @BuckWoodyMSFT), one sports ball team sports balled better than the other sports ball team.  Which is fairly normal. 

On to the show!

Tuesday 2-7-2023

On Tuesday we had iAsia Brown (Twitter | @TechPicasso) Producer at X-Box Game Studios Publishing on the show!  Neeraj had won and was the host this week.  Our topic was Diversity and Inclusion.  iAsia is a brilliant, wonderful, amazing human being.  She is a Veteran of the US Airforce & the Marine Corps. and we THANK her for her service!  Our discussions were wide ranging, poignant, and incredibly valuable.

I understand that this topic could be a trigger to many people because of current events.  If that is the case please take the time to watch this show.  When we make things better for everyone we open them up to have an amazing experience.  Inclusivity opens new markets and individuals to capitalistic opportunities that they may not otherwise have access to.

If you feel I'm wrong, its not hard to find me and I am open to your feedback.

Wednesday 2-8-2023

On Wednesday we dropped our second February video for our MS Tech Bits!  Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @nodestreamio) and Andres Padilla (Twitter | @neeraj_jhaveri) share with us the Tips & Tricks for Azure Data Lake Gen 1 to Gen 2 Migrations.

This topic is a big deal!  Andres worked with the PG to develop the program and work with some of our largest customers in the world to migrate off of ADLS Gen 1 to ADLS Gen 2.  He and Neeraj share their experience and many links that will help you through this journey.  Speaking of which, if this is a situations where you find yourself or your company finds itself, then you should DEFINITELY be working with our team Azure FastTrack CXP.  We are a complimentary Product Group in Azure Engineering that works directly with customers on their move or adoption to Azure.  Here's a link to a video on how you can engage with us!

Thursday 2-9-2023

On Thursday we had our Community Round Table featuring incredible content from you the community.

I could write more about what we did on the show but I'd rather share all the amazing content that we covered in the order of appearance:

Neeraj

• What is Diversity & Inclusion? - Global Diversity Practice by Global Diversity Practice Twitter @gdptweets

Bradley

• Microsoft’s commitment to the data community By Jeremy Kadlec Twitter @MSSQLTips  

Andres

• The elephant in the room: How to write PySpark Unit Tests by Prashanth Xavier

Josh

• Structured Streaming in Synapse Spark by Ryan J Adams Twitter @ryanjadams

Neeraj

• Bing With AI: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Why Search Is Changed Forever by Joanna Stern Twitter @JoannaStern

Bradley

• Resolving Azure Data Studio's Identity Crises by Frank Boucher & Erin Stellato Twitter @fboucheros @erinstellato

Andres

• Combining the power of Optimum, OpenVINO™, ONNX Runtime, and Azure by The AI Show Live (Cassie Breviu, Akhila Vidiyala, Devang Aggarwal)

Josh

• SQL Server on Linux Install - The Basics by Phil Ekins Twitter @SQLPhilUK

Neeraj

• Black History Month: Why we celebrate it in February : NPR by Scott Neuman Twitter @ScottNeumanNPR

Bradley

• Sessions and Speakers by Numbers (SQLBits 2023!)  By Rob Sewell Twitter @sqldbawithbeard 

Andres

• Creating Azure Monitor alerts for Cosmos (and other databases) queries by Andre Dewes 

Josh

• SQL Server Transactional Replication by Gareth Newman 

WRAP IT UP

We hope you will all join us this week, on Tuesday we have a BIG guest.  No spoilers on who won and will be the host, but the one and only Patrick LeBlanc (Twitter | @PatrickDBA) from Guy in a Cube on the program on Tuesday at 1 pm EST.  

I've known Patrick for well over a decade at this point in my life.  He's an incredibly man and I cannot wait for the conversation!

Don't forget we will have another MS Tech Bit this Wednesday and as always the Community Round table will be live on Thursday.

We hope to see you there.  And 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