Scaling down in the cloud
I may be completely off base here, but I’ve noticed a correlation between folks who use Amazon Web Services and their understanding that once you scale up a service during a busy business period, you…
Using AzCopy with Batch Files and Task Scheduler
As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of AzCopy, especially now that it has a sync option to keep local data synchronized with blob storage. In a recent release of…
What is a container anyway?
Recently there was a thread on Twitter which established that a lot of IT people didn’t know the difference between virtual machines and containers. https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status/1137737702227550208 I felt like this was a question I’d already answered,…
A short Azure SQL Edge explainer
On Thursday May 2nd, 2019, Microsoft announced a new edition of SQL Server targeting Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices. That means SQL Server can now run almost anywhere. From the Venturebeat article: It supports…
It’s a UNIX system. I know this.
Jurassic Park was a great film. Steven Spielberg brought technology into the film era in a major way with computer generated dinosaurs and some now-classic film lines, many of which came from Jeff “Dreamboat” Goldblum.…
AzCopy finally gets a sync option, and all the world rejoices
I consider Blob Storage to be the gateway drug to Azure, because it’s a really easy way to get going with offsite backups. One of the ways I’ve leveraged Blob Storage is with SQL Server…
Azure means hybrid now
On Monday 24 September 2018, Microsoft announced a slew of stuff at their annual Ignite conference that is going to make life a lot more interesting for many people all over the world. There’s a…
The cloud is not just someone else’s computer
A year ago, I wrote in a post that cloud computing is just someone else’s data center. I was wrong. Whether we like it or not, the cloud is more than just a bunch of 1s…
SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out
For the last five months or so, I have been helping some really smart people put words on paper, both the physical and electronic kind, which is hopefully going to culminate in an actual technical…
Compañero Conference and SQL Modernization Roadshow
October is a busy month for me. I am flying all over the US and Canada for speaking engagements to share some thoughts about migrating your SQL Server environment to the cloud (specifically Azure). Compañero…
Remote Storage Sync and Restore updated
Recently, I presented my “Back up and Restore your Database with Azure Blob Storage” session to the Bellingham PASS Chapter. There are two components to the Azure Blob Storage Sync and Restore utility: Sync and…
Azure Storage Throughput
Hot on the heels of DTUs from earlier this week, today we’re going to switch focus a little, while staying with Azure, and have a quick look at storage speeds on SQL Server running on Azure…
Importing a BACPAC into Azure SQL Database
In our final look at migrating a database to Azure SQL Database, we will import a BACPAC file. From previous weeks we know that a BACPAC file contains the full schema, as well as the data…
Moving a database to Azure SQL Database
This week we will actually move a database into Azure SQL Database, using the first of two of Microsoft’s recommended methods. The main thing to keep in mind is that SQL Server (on-premises, or “earthed”)…
What is physical storage anyway?
My friend Jason asked me about his MySQL database export file last week, whether it was sufficient to create a new database. I replied saying that he would have to set up the database separately,…