The Bit Bucket (Greg Low): IDisposable

Huge news: Azure expanding to Australia!!!

Greg Low — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:31:00 GMT

I was so glad to hear today that Azure is expanding to Australia. This helps with two remaining areas of concern that I've heard from a variety of customers:

Compliance and data sovereignty (not wanting to store data outside Australia)
Latency (previously high latency even to our nearest external data centres)

With both these concerns now disappearing, it's time for more Australian customers to get involved with Azure if they've been resisting so far.

Two Azure sub-regions are to be added. One for New South Wales and another for Victoria. In addition, data geo-replication between the sub-regions will also be available.

Private Cloud and Virtualisation Strategy Event - Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne

Greg Low — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:50:00 GMT

Fellow MVP Alessandro Cardoso sent me information today about a private cloud and virtualisation event that's running later this month.

It's being offered in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.

If that's of interest, you'll find more details here: http://virtualisationandmanagement.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/private-cloud-virtualisation-strategy-events-in-brisbane-melbourne-sydney-may-and-june-2013/

SQL Down Under Show 59 - Guest Reza Rad now available for download

Greg Low — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:51:00 GMT

Hi Folks,

On Thursday night, I got to record a podcast with Reza Rad. I was interested to speak to Reza after reading his SQL Server 2012 Integration Services Cookbook.

In the show, we discuss SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) extensibility and some aspects of performance tuning for SSIS.

You'll find the show here: http://www.sqldownunder.com/Podcasts

Enjoy!

Another large set of Azure enhancements: including some for SQL folk

Greg Low — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:13:00 GMT

I'm really impressed by the rate that the Azure team is making and releasing enhancements. Scott Guthrie posted about these again recently.

The following items in the announcement were ones that I think can be useful to those with an interest in SQL Server:

* General availability of Azure VMs. While we've had SQL Database and SQL Reporting available as services in Azure, we don't have the other parts of the database platform. With Azure VMs, you can spin up a VM to run SQL Server.

* SQL Server templates. You don't need to install SQL Server when creating a VM. There are templates that have this already installed. You can also save your own templates. They've also provided BizTalk and SharePoint templates.

* Hourly billing for the templates above. This means that if you just need a SQL Server system for a few hours, you can easily do that.

* Virtual Networks. You can create a virtual network, including the ability to stretch that out to your on-premises systems.

* Larger memory VMs. If you really want to try out tabular analytic models, etc. you can now get up to 8 cores and 56GB of memory in a VM.

* Durable data disks from storage can now be up to 1TB in size each.

* Significant reduction in the price of the VMs.

You'll find Scott's announcement here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/04/16/windows-azure-general-availability-of-infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas.aspx

Warning: Lost my stored Azure credential details in SSMS after applying CU3 + Hotfix

Greg Low — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:50:00 GMT

I posted the other day about a hotfix that's needed after you apply SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU3, to still be able to open or edit SSIS projects or database maintenance plans in SSDT.

However, I found that after I applied CU3 and the hotfix, that all my stored credential details for SQL Servers was gone. That was particularly nasty for all my Azure-related logons. I had to set them up again.

No idea why that happened but figured I should give you all a heads-up about it!

New Features added to Azure today - AD, Backup & Website Monitoring

Greg Low — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:01:00 GMT

It's great to see the constant roll-out of capabilities across the Azure platform.

One in particular that many have been waiting for is Active Directory. Scott Guthrie posted today that it's now available for production use. This is particularly significant and also enables options for on-premises directory sync and federation. If you have been using Office365, you have already been using Azure AD.

Scott also mentioned that they are about to open a preview of a link from OAuth 2 (or OpenID) to Azure AD. That will enable you to use alternate credentials (such as Twitter credentials) to authenticate against Azure AD.

They have also added an Azure Backup option and added a variety of monitoring options for Azure Websites, including the ability to retrieve website logs via FTP.

Scott's post about this is here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/04/08/windows-azure-active-directory-general-availability-new-backup-service-web-site-monitoring-and-diagnostic-improvements.aspx

Another government certifying Azure: UK

Greg Low — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:30:00 GMT

One of the common objections that comes up when talking to people about storing their data in Azure, is that "we are not allowed to do it". In so many cases, that simply isn't true, or it's true for a small part of the overall data. In other cases, it's a case of no-one wanting to be seen to be the first in their industry to do so, for some perceived liability reasons. Again, most of these are unfounded.

The thing that can change these opinions though is certification by governments. Some have already done so and it's great to see the announcement that Windows Azure received G-Cloud Impact Level 2 Accreditation from Cabinet Office for use across the UK Public Sector. You can read more about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukgovernment/archive/2013/04/04/windows-azure-receives-g-cloud-impact-level-2-accreditation-from-cabinet-office-for-use-across-the-uk-public-sector.aspx

FIX: SSIS Project Issues with SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU3 (Also applies to Maintenance Plans)

Greg Low — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:56:00 GMT

Cumulative Update 3 for SP1 for SQL Server 2012 caused a number of problems with SSIS packages. This also applies to database maintenance plans as they are also SSIS packages.

After applying the update, you could get this error when opening an SSIS package:

The type initializer for 'Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Design.SharedIcons' threw an exception.
Value of 'null' is not valid for 'stream'. (System.Drawing)

If you edit a maintenance plan, you could get this error:

Provide value on 'System.Windows.Markup.StaticExtension' threw an exception. (PresentationFramework)
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. (mscorlib)
The type initializer for 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Graph.Extended.HighContrastSupport' threw an exception. (Microsoft.SqlServer.IntegrationServices.Graph)

A fix has been released to address these issues. You should apply it in conjunction with CU3, whenever you are deploying CU3. You'll find details here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2832017

SQL Down Under Show 58 - Marco Russo - SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Data Models

Greg Low — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 03:13:00 GMT

In Melbourne, it was the coldest morning of the year so far but I didn't mind getting up at 5:30AM to record an interview with Marco Russo. Marco is well-known in the SQL BI community for his writing and presentations.

SQL Down Under show 58 is now online: http://www.sqldownunder.com/Resources/Podcast.aspx

In this show, Marco discusses concepts and experiences from working with tabular data models in SQL Server Analysis Services.

Enjoy!

Using Existing Windows Azure SQL Databases with Azure Mobile Services

Greg Low — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 04:21:00 GMT

I was one of the speakers today at the 6 Weeks of Azure bootcamp event in Sydney today. During the day, as well as speaking, we have an "unconference". There's a lot of discussion on whatever the attendees want to discuss.

One of the offline questions I got today though was about how to hook up Azure Mobile Services to an existing Windows Azure SQL Database rather than using the one that Mobile Services can auto-create. While getting that to work, we learned a few things:

Tables need to be created in a schema that has the same name as the Mobile Service. (ie: if I want a table called CurrentTasks, and my service is called TaskManager, I need to have my table called TaskManager.CurrentTasks.
Tables need to have a clustered primary key that is an integer and is called "id" (it appears case-sensitive in the app for some reason)
After you modify the mobile service to point to your database (or after you create a mobile service referencing the existing database), you need to add each table to the service by using the mobile services portal. (If you reference a table that doesn't exist, that's when it would also create the table)

The attendee had already created his tables in the dbo schema. We moved his tables by using:

ALTER SCHEMA servicename TRANSFER dbo.OldTableName;

It's also worth noting that Mobile Services isn't yet available in all datacenters. The attendee's database was in a different datacenter and it's important to try to avoid that, or the latency can be a big issue. He and another attendee were asking about the best ways to move the database to another datacentre. One option for this is to export a BACPAC of the database to Azure Storage, and to then import the database to the alternate server.

Unfortunately, even though CREATE DATABASE AS COPY OF works across servers within the same datacenter, it doesn't work for servers in different datacenters.

Whitepaper editing

Greg Low — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:10:00 GMT

Hi Folks,

I posted a day or so back about the whitepaper on plan caching and recompilation being published.

Today I had a query from a reader and found that the editor has messed up an example.

For example, I had this example of a query that's almost identical but where the query plan would be different:

SELECT ProductID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
GROUP BY ProductID
HAVING AVG(OrderQty) > 5
ORDER BY ProductID;

SELECT productid
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
GROUP BY ProductID
HAVING AVG(OrderQty) > 5
ORDER BY ProductId;

"Helpfully" the editor changed it to:

SELECT ProductID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
GROUP BY ProductID
HAVING AVG(OrderQty) > 5
ORDER BY ProductID;

And undid the point of the example...

Whitepaper: Plan Caching and Recompilations in SQL Server 2012

Greg Low — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:39:00 GMT

Hi Folks,

Over the last year, I've been working on an update to the whitepaper Plan Caching in SQL Server 2008 as a background task.

A great group of reviewers have been involved at various stages during the process. Thank you to Paul White, Andrew Kelly, Kalen Delaney, and Rubén Garrigós from the SQL community, along with Leigh Stewart and Jack Li from the SQL Server product team for sharing your knowledge and ideas.

Gail Erikson from the SQL documentation team let me know today that the latest version Plan Caching and Recompilation in SQL Server 2012 is now available:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn148262.aspx

Enjoy!

SQL Down Under - Show 57 - Karen López - Data Modelling, Database Refactoring, Space Data, and Open Data

Greg Low — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:49:00 GMT

Hi Folks,

I got to record another podcast today. Show 57 features guest SQL Server MVP Karen López. Karen is well-known in the SQL Community, on her blog and is prolific on Twitter.

In the show, Karen discusses her experiences related to data modelling, including tools, round-tripping, traceability, and model-driven development. She also covers some common mistakes she encounters in this area. Later in the show Karen discusses the challenges in database refactoring, her interest in all things to do with space, and her interest in the open data movement.

The show is now available: http://www.sqldownunder.com/Resources/Podcast.aspx

Enjoy!

SQL Server BI Tooling now in Visual Studio 2012 Shell

Greg Low — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:33:00 GMT

This is really exciting. One of the complaints from those using the BI tools (SQL Server Data Tools) has been that they were tied to the Visual Studio 2010 shell, when the rest of their development work had moved to Visual Studio 2012.

The SQL Server BI team has now released the VS2012 versions of these project templates. You'll find details the download here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36843

The Reporting Services team blog about it is here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrsteamblog/archive/2013/03/06/sql-server-data-tools-business-intelligence-for-visual-studio-2012-released-online.aspx

And the Analysis Services team blog about it is here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/analysisservices/archive/2013/03/06/sql-server-data-tools-business-intelligence-for-visual-studio-2012-released-online.aspx

One nice aspect that I've found is that I have been able to open BI projects in VS2010 again, even after editing them in VS2012. I wasn't expecting that to be possible so it must mean that the project format hasn't changed.

One hint on installation though:

Make sure you choose the "New Instance" option (strange as that might seem). Otherwise, you'll get an error that says the following:

Rule "Same architecture installation" failed.

Enjoy!

Windows Azure SQL Reporting - now configurable in the new portal

Greg Low — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:37:00 GMT

Scott Guthrie blogged yesterday about a raft of new changes to the Azure platform.

Of interest to SQL folk are really three main changes:

* SQL Reporting has made its way into the new portal (ie: you no longer have to flip back to the old portal to work with it. Hopefully Data Sync will do the same soon).

* Better options now exist for downloading blobs from Azure Storage. (This could include, for example, SQL Server backups made using BACKUP TO URL).

* New tools for monitoring the usage and availability of VMs.

For others, it's good to see that you can now upload .cer certificate files, not just .pfx certificate files when working with cloud services, and also interesting to see Android support added to mobile services.

You'll find Scott's post here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/03/04/windows-azure-updates-android-support-sql-reporting-services-active-directory-more.aspx