I'm always honored to be chosen to present at events, but I'm especially happy to be speaking at the first ever Data Platform Discovery Day! Data Platform Discovery Day is "A free one-day virtual conference introducing you to the Microsoft Data Platform", and it's new this year. It's actually 2 days, …

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When migrating databases to the cloud, requirements can differ between organizations and often between applications as well. One deployment option does not fit all. With Azure, you have two choices: SQL virtual machines or a fully managed SQL database service. Understanding the differences between the two is the first …

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For those wanting to experiment with Azure Cosmos DB for free, a great option has long been the Azure Cosmos DB 30 Day Trial, which is awesome because you can keep renewing it in perpetuity. But now there's something even better – an entire free tier! That's right! Microsoft has just announced Azure Cosmos DB Free …

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Checksums can be very helpful for validating that data is intact and free from simple mistakes. They are extremely fast to calculate, and computing power has made them all but trivial over the past few decades. Because of this, checksums often hide in plain sight. One of these is the Luhn Checksum, which is produced by …

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In my previous post, I discussed an issue I encountered where comments caused strange issues in a PowerShell notebook in Azure Data Studio. I opened an issue in GitHub about this, and got some very prompt feedback from a member of the team. It turns out I did not have the latest version of the PowerShell Kernel running …

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This is not the blog post I was intending to write. I started off writing about a different topic, and had some code that I wanted to share in a PowerShell Notebook. Getting that notebook to behave like it should have, however, is another story entirely and worthy of its own post – this one. PowerShell Notebooks are …

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We have just under two months to go until SQL Saturday Chicago 2020! This year we received over 150 abstracts, and we are very pleased to announce our schedule. Thank you to all who submitted! I hope to see you on Saturday, March 21, 2020, at Benedictine University in Lisle for what will be a wonderful day of free …

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A while back I wrote about starting a not-for-profit, detailing the genesis of the Chicago SQL Association. This organization allows us to better manage the finances of our user groups and our SQL Saturday event. That post has proven quite popular, so I can only assume it has been helpful to others looking to set up …

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Another PASS Summit has come and gone, and once again I find myself extremely fortunate to have been able to attend and speak. This year was also extra special for me, as it was my first time attending as a Microsoft MVP, and also as a PASS Summit Official Blogger. I'd like to take a moment and thank everyone who …

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The SQL Saturday Chicago 2020 team is very happy to announce this year's pre-conference sessions! Premium Performance Tuning by Erik Darling Data Science with Databricks by Ginger Grant Leveling Up Your Azure Skills – Implementing Data Platform like a Pro by Joey D'Antoni Bookmarks, Brain Pixels, and Bar Charts: …

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