When was the last time you deployed code and then found an issue with the version of a stored procedure, a setting, or even a service pack? While we data folk don't generally have as much trouble with environment issues are our developer counterparts, it can still be a big deal. Spinning up a VM may not be such a big deal anymore; however, most of us still have to request one and wait. What if you could take care of the OS and the SQL Server and not worry about setting up another development environment? Our guest today is Andrew Pruski and he talks to us about how he is using containers to support his environments and the flexibility it provides to his and his co-workers.
While the Linux containers seem to get lots of love, one unique thing about Andrew's setup is he is running Windows containers with older versions of SQL Server. 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. If you are using containers, I would love to hear about it. Use the hastag #sqlpodcast and let us know!
The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/24/sql-server-containers/ and have fun on the SQL trail.
Although the SSIS Catalog DB is created with management studio, it does not behave like other databases. Our conversation in this episode revolves around the catalog, SSIS packages, and some of the complexities of migrating packages. Steve and I are excited to chat with our guest Andy Leonard about his thoughts on the catalog and how this feature provides some really interesting benefits for ETL architecture.
The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/17/episode-79-ssis-catalog/ and have fun on the SQL trail.
As database administrators, we will all upgrade our environments at some point; however, we don't normally have the opportunity to upgrade to the next version of SQL Server before it becomes available to everyone else. In this weeks episode of the podcast, Steve and I chat with Brian Carrig about the journey channeladvisor took to implement SQL Server 2016 in their environment, that it was like working with the SQLCAT team, and how they go about making use of some of the new features. Brian shares with us some of the struggles they were having along with how the 2016 version helped address these issues.
Brian invites everyone to upvote his connect item which you can find on the shownotes
The show notes are available at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/11/conversionto2016/ and have fun on the SQL trail!
We invited Paul Turley on the show to chat with us about some of the new features in SQL Server reporting services, but were pleasantly surprised to have the conversation take a different direction. Paul talks about some of the new training available for those interested in visualizations and why this community can be hard to define--and connect with. There are so many visualization options and even within Microsoft we have many products that overlap in functionality. In addition to talking about the pick list items of new features, Paul gives some guidance and why you should choose certain products and what makes good use case scenarios for some of the new features.
With the new analytics features now available in SQL Server 2016 via SP1, I think there is going to be additional requirements for data professionals to provide better analytics features and this episode is a good starter for how to frame those conversations.
Show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/03/reporting-improvements/ and have fun on the SQL trail!