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SQL Data Partners Podcast

Hosted by Carlos L Chacon, the SQL Data Partners Podcast focuses on Microsoft data platform related topics mixed with a sprinkling of professional development. Carlos and guests discuss new and familiar features and ideas and how you might apply them in your environments. Visit our website for episode show notes at marathonus.com/podcast and leave a comment if you have a topic you think we should discuss. We’ll see YOU on the SQL Trail.
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Now displaying: Category: SQL Server

Hosted by Carlos L Chacon, the SQL Data Partners Podcast focuses on Microsoft data platform related topics mixed with a sprinkling of professional development. Carlos and guests discuss new and familiar features and ideas and how you might apply them in your environments. Visit our website for episode show notes at marathonus.com/podcast and leave a comment if you have a topic you think we should discuss. We’ll see YOU on the SQL Trail.

Jan 10, 2024

Do you find yourself repeating the same actions when pulling SQL Server performance metrics? 

Performance tuning a troublesome SQL Server can be a challenge. Luckily the community continues to produce wonderful folks like Erik Darling who contribute their knowledge to make your life a bit easier. In this episode of the SQL Data Partners podcast, we sit down with Erik and discuss the scripts he built to gather performance metrics. While every potential issue is not captured in these scripts, they'll help you start gathering information so you can decide on the next step to take.

Get the scripts

Have you used Erik’s scripts before? Let us know!

The show notes for today's episode can be found at Episode 272: Performance Tuning Scripts. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Aug 29, 2023

We're kicking off Season 7 with containers!

Spinning up a VM may not be such a big deal anymore; however, most of us still have to request from another group one and wait. Even waiting on an Azure VM can be somewhat painful. Wouldn't it be nice to forget about setting up another development environment just to test something that isn't going to stick around?

Our guest today is Chuck Bryan, and he talks to us about how he is using containers to support his environments and the flexibility it provides to him in his development.

While the Linux containers used to get lots of love, there haven't been too many feature updates lately as much of the focus is on azure services. What is cool to me is there are tools out there that can help us folks running windows get up and running without having to wait on our infrastructure to upgrade to Windows server 2016--or have Azure spend.

Chuck gives us some insights on how he got started with containers. We discuss what environments might benefit from them--and which ones won't. He also gives us a couple of tips on the best places to get started.

The show notes for today's episode can be found at Episode 266: Working With Containers. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jun 28, 2023

Compañeros! In May, SQL Data Partners was acquired by Marathon Consulting.  There were many moving parts to get this done and we are excited to finally bring this news to the podcast.  In this episode we introduce the principles of Marathon Consulting, and we discuss the future of the podcast.  Make sure your speakers are adjusted properly when you listen to this episode.  If you have any questions or comments, please let us know via LinkedIn—we always look forward to hearing from you.

 The show notes for today's episode can be found at Episode 265: WHY and What's Next. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Apr 12, 2023

A backup is only helpful when you can restore the backup. This should not prove to be overly shocking; however, normally we get the satisfaction of taking a backup and feel like all is well. Ideally, we should be testing our backups on some cadence—and it should be more frequent than the annual disaster recovery test. In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast we talk with Chris Marshall, owner of Verified Backups, about how he has solved this problem and how it can benefit your organization. We discuss some of the requirements you’ll need to address in your own testing, and we give some parameters for who might be a good candidate for the service Chris and his team provide.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/04/12/episode-264-verified-backups. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Mar 29, 2023

When we couldn’t confirm a guest speaker by recording time, Eugene, Kevin, Amanda, and I decided the show must go on, so we went into the ideas vault and pulled out a couple of listener questions we hadn’t answered.  In this episode, we talk about how to create your own documentation, SSMS installs, SOS_Scheduler_Yield and Eugene gives us an update on SQL Bits and the conference crud he picked up along the way.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/03/29/episode-263-sql-server-this-n-that. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Mar 15, 2023

Learning new technology can be difficult—especially when it’s a technology in an area you are not familiar with.  In this episode, Eugene walks us through some of the challenges he has faced getting started with Azure Synapse.  We hope that this episode might be helpful to those trying to learn new features.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/03/15/episode-262-learning-azure-synapse-pt-1. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Mar 1, 2023

It would appear Microsoft has run out of words to use for new features/products, so they are just going to recycle existing words for a bit of fun at our expense.  In this episode we explore the Azure Data Lakehouse—which is not a data lake, nor a traditional data warehouse and Books Online (BOL) refers to it as Databricks Lakehouse.  Luke Moloney walks us through how combining the flexibility of data lake storage with some ACID transaction and data governance gives organizations looking to analyze their data a new option.  The hope is the cost to build, store, and analyze data will be easier and more approachable for organizations who don’t want to go with the traditional data warehouse model.  This still feels like an Enterprise feature to me but let me know if your organization would be interested in this approach.  As always, special thanks to Luke and the folks at Microsoft for making themselves available to us.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/03/01/episode-261-the-data-lakehouse. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Feb 15, 2023

We’re back with another SQL Server 2022 feature—Contained Availability Groups.  Have you ever failed over to a secondary node and then found a job or login missing?  This new Enterprise-only feature aims to solve this problem by ‘containing’ all the objects—master, msdb, AND the availability database all in one group so you can manage everything you need when you have to fail over.  Brandon Leach returns after more than 200 episodes to give us the lowdown on this new feature and walk us through where you should start planning your upgrade.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/02/15/episode-260-contained-availability-groups. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jan 17, 2023

We kick off the new year discussing a new feature in SQL Server 2022 called Transact-SQL snapshot backups. Good luck with the Google search on this feature--we know we had fun. 😊 These are not the snapshot backups you were frustrated with in 2005. We talk a little bit about who will be interested in this feature and what scenarios it will come in handy. The hardware vendors seem particularly excited about this future as they can now introduce snapshots without needing a third-party application like Veeam to do that for them. We predict more collaboration between the database administrator and the hardware administrator with this feature. We also get a couple of use case scenarios from the community that we share in this episode. Are you looking forward to using snapshots more effectively in your environment? Please let us know your thoughts!

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2023/01/18/episode-259-t-sql-snapshot-backups/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Dec 27, 2022

As we close out the year, we take a look back and think about all those SQL Server 2022 episodes we didn’t record this year—and then make the goal to increase this count in the new year. 😊 We discuss some of the Cardinality Estimation changes in this version and the scenarios in which this may affect other features. I ask Kevin and Eugene what technologies they will be focusing on in the year ahead and how many books Kevin is going to try and write. From all of us at SQL Data Partners, we wish you and yours a Happy New Year!

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/12/28/episode-258-leave-2022-enter-2023. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Nov 30, 2022

Have you ever thought about working for yourself? It can be very enticing for some, and in this episode, we talk with John Sterrett about the pros and cons of running your own organization. We tackle some of the reasons you might get started and we share some of our experiences of working in our own organizations. Each person’s journey is going to be different and as hard as it will be, you need to ensure you don’t allow others success or failure to overly influence your decisions. As the work environment has shifted in the last two years, it may that be some of the previous ‘whys’ no longer apply. If you have thoughts around this, let us know!!

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/11/30/episode-257-the-business-of-working-for-yourself. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Nov 3, 2022

Seven years ago, I started the SQL Data Partners Podcast. We have now arrived at Episode 256, and we dedicate this episode to you, the community. Thanks to everyone who has joined us along the way, and we hope to continue providing content you can enjoy on the go while still connecting with your SQL Server community. While we originally thought we might focus on SQL Server 2022, we really found there are just lots of great topics to be covering in the future. We hope you enjoy this special community edition of the SQL Data Partners Podcast.

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/11/03/episode-256-the-community-episode/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Oct 5, 2022

One of the biggest challenges with developers using object-relational mapping (ORM) tools is the bad queries or procedures they create. Sure, most tools can create CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete, Upsert) procedures, but what about the extremely advanced safe dynamic Search stored procedures? My bet is they are super inefficient and could be improved. In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, we talk with Kevin Martin, the creator of sp_CRUDGen, about how his procedure can help your developers create better CRUD-type stored procedures. As always, we are super excited about sharing what our great community is working on, and we think there will be value in the work Kevin has put together. Have you used sp_CRUDGen? We’d love to get your thoughts.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/10/05/episode-255-automate-complex-crud-with-sp_crudgen/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Sep 21, 2022

Would you be interested in a tool to help you do code review checks and provide developers guidance on best practices? In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, we talk with Kevin Martin, the creator of sp_Develop, about how his procedure can help you review naming conventions, table conventions, data type conventions, SQL code conventions, data issues, and even configuration issues. Kevin was approached about writing a best practice document but ended up writing a stored procedure you and I can use to help our environment. We love sharing what community members have done and hope you enjoy this conversation with Kevin on the tool. He is looking for folks to help him build out items, so if you have a suggestion, be sure to include it in GitHub.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/09/21/episode-254-code-smell-checks-with-sp_develop/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Sep 7, 2022

In this episode, we dive into the Power Apps offering and discuss the pros and cons of using this latest Microsoft offering. Some definitions are given and hopefully this episode can orient folks on how to position Power Apps in their organizations.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/09/07/episode-253-go-mobile-with-power-apps. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Aug 24, 2022

Knowing your SQL Server is patched when an issue occurs is worth the effort of keeping it patched. While I don’t suggest a zero-day install for most folks, setting up a regular cadence to check is a reasonable ask if you have to manage a system. In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, we discuss the need for patching and how you might go about it. Special shoutout to Episode 112 with the late Robert Davis on the same subject. We would also like to thank the fine folks at dbatools.io for some nifty PowerShell to help us install patches and Brent Ozar for keeping up sqlserverupdates.com. If you have some additional ideas on how to best meet your patching needs, let us know via social media!

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/08/24/episode-252-the-cumulative-update-dilemma. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Aug 10, 2022

How can you begin to integrate AI models into your environment without spending months building everything out? As we continue our march to Episode 256, we bring back our friend Sam Nasr to talk about Azure Cognitive Services. Sam walks us through a few examples of how he was able to leverage some pre-packaged voice recognition services to assist customers get to the proper area for service. We discuss scenarios where Azure Cognitive Services really shines and where you may have to develop more custom solutions or look for extensions. If you are using Azure Cognitive Services, let us know your experience!

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/08/10/episode-251-azure-cognitive-services. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jul 27, 2022

This episode we are doing a bit of a look back and are going to air some previously buried content.  Some of the bloopers are pre-video and some of them have some physical comedy, which you’ll have to go to YouTube to see. While a few were cut out of the published episodes, they are mostly things you’ve never heard.

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/07/27/episode-250-what-happens-before-companeros/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jul 13, 2022

Data marts in Power BI have arrived and the words “data mart” mean something to data professionals.  In this episode of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, we introduce the latest offering in Power BI and discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly for teams looking to arrive at self-service business intelligence.

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/07/12/episode-249-data-marts-in-power-bi/. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jun 29, 2022

How do you keep records of your SQL Server environments?  Patching levels, security accounts, configuration options, maintenance jobs and the like are some of the pieces we have to keep organized.  Are you using something besides Excel to keep up with this?  Sure, we can use the Content Management Server (CMS) to query across several instances, but we still need to organize this information somewhere.  Our guests for this episode, Sean and Jen McCown, discuss inventory challenges with us and why this information is important.  We might also get into some new features of their software, MinionWare.  If you have a suggestion we didn’t discuss, please let us know!

The show notes and video for this episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/06/29/episode-248-inventory-documentation. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jun 15, 2022

IT workers will generally claim they like learning new technology—it is almost a required attribute.  Why then is bringing in new technology so hard?  In this episode, we explore how new technologies make their way into organizations and how we might either embrace them or how this becomes a major challenge.  There are so many new technologies now, it is very difficult to keep up with.  I would love to hear from you on this.  Please share with us your success stories on bringing in new technology and how it benefited you or your organization.

The show notes and video can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/06/15/episode-247-pushing-the-boundaries-or-pushing-your-luck. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Jun 8, 2022

While we continue to review the new features of the CTP preview of SQL Server 2022, we turn our attention to the recent Microsoft Build conference and talk about some of the announcements made.  We try to separate the interesting technology from the marketing fluff and what pieces might trickle into the data platform space.  Defining your requirements has never been more important as the number of offerings continue to increase.  We were super excited to hear about Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform; however, a little digging into the technology makes us realize we aren’t quite ready to pay for that service tier.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/06/08/episode-246-microsoft-build-2022-announcements. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Apr 20, 2022

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 18 was introduced to support SQL Server 2019 and in this episode of the podcast, we discuss some of the new updates available in SSMS and Azure Data Studio.  We talk about scenarios where we use these tools and give some feedback on the new Azure services they support.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/04/20/episode-245-tooling-updates. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Mar 30, 2022

Who made that change?  It is one of those questions that can send chills down the spine of those responsible for databases.  In this episode, Josephine Bush talks with us about how we can use a combination of the native tools—auditing and extended events along with some custom reporting to be prepared for questions about change when more environments are subject to regulation. 

What is great about the community is their willingness to share and Josephine comes through with a set of her own scripts.  What I think is most helpful is the filtering included so you only need to capture the most pertinent changes.  This helps you feel confident you capture the most important pieces without all the extra logging you have to muck through when you actually have a question to answer.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/03/30/episode-244-extended-events-vs-sql-server-audit. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Mar 16, 2022

Conferences are on the uptick as COVID restrictions lift and we are excited for the upcoming year. After Eugene's return from SQLBits my thoughts revolved around what I wanted to learn this year at conferences and how you and I can go about picking the content we want to know more this year. Join us for a quick discussion on deciding what to learn as conference season picks up.

The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/03/16/episode-243-choosing-what-content-to-focus-on. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

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