Data Work Mom

Your Work Mom helping you with your data questions

  • #TidBitTrenches: SSMS Errors on Load

    Ran into an interesting issue today. Upon opening a new install of SQL Server 2019, I received the below error:

    SSMS Error message. Text of error message below image.

    The Microsoft.SqIServer.Management.ThreatDetection.ThreatDetectionPackage,
    Microsoft. SqIServer.Management.ThreatDetection,
    Version=16.0.0.0, Culture= neutral,
    PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91’ package did not load correctly.
    The problem may have been caused by a configuration change or by the installation of another extension. You can get more information by examining the file C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AppEnv\1 5.0\ActivityLog.xml‘.
    Restarting Visual Studio could help resolve this issue. Continue to show this error message?

    UGH. Not helpful. I do what any reasonable IT person does – I google the error. Not super helpful either. I look back at the error message. Wait a minute. That version number looks odd. Since this is a new box, I look at what has been installed.

    Installed apps image highlighting 2 versions of SSMS

    2 versions of SSMS? That in itself is not normally an issue, but it was the Preview version that gave me pause. Went to the authoritative voice – Microsoft – and said:

    SSMS 19.0.1 is the latest general availability (GA) version. If you have a preview version of SSMS 19 installed, you should uninstall it before installing SSMS 19.0.1.

    Ok. Fine. I’ll follow the rules. This once. I uninstalled both versions and then installed the most current version.

    Gene Wilder gif from Young Frankenstein with text: "Its Alive" From https://media.tenor.com/SuADVxKkQ-AAAAAC/frankenstein-its-alive.gif

    And just like that, I was back in business. Not even a reboot needed.

    SSMS window without errors this time.
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  • #TidbitTrenches: Production fixes

    Women police in Stockholm, Sweden, 1958. Trenchcoats.
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Women_police_sweden_1958.png

    Recently we ran into an issue with one of our Production SQL Server boxes. We knew the fix: we’d have to upgrade to SQL Server Enterprise. And quick. My server guy asked me if he needed to block out time THAT DAY so we could get things rolling. It’s a reasonable question, he needs to make time in his schedule to do such tasks. I said no.

    WHAT? WHY? Because years of experience (and impulsivity) have taught me you first stop and think.

    Some examples of things that I had to think about in this situation:

    • Did I want to upgrade our version along with our edition? (Yes, yes, I did)
    • If yes, what version – the latest? (Probably not)
    • Do I want a new server or is this an in-place upgrade? (New Server)
    • What else does could this affect? (Lots)

    Tons of other things to think about, but since this is post is supposed to be a tidbit, we will stop there. Here’s the thing – we could have affected a lot.

    Let’s address each of these examples to give us an idea of what can go wrong. First off, our current SQL Server version is in extended support and we are missing out on features I want to implement. These features match with our company’s goals over the next few years, and our next big lift should be more Azure focused than SQL Server version focused. That means I don’t want to install another version 1 year from now. I’m a busy gal and 1 year goes by quickly!

    Does that mean I want the latest version? More bang for the buck – right? Brent Ozar’s post Which Version of SQL Server Should You Use? gave me pause. And when I thought about it more, I realized we may have compatibility issues with other apps that interact with our databases on that server. (BTW: checked with one of the vendors and they confirmed they’ve done ZERO testing on the latest SQL Server version and do not know any current clients that are using it.) So I needed to really weigh benefits versus risk on what version we should go to.

    What about in-place upgrades? While I’ve done more in-place upgrades than I care to count, occasionally they can cause unexpected issues; I didn’t want to add more variables when I was already tackling an issue fix. Full stop.

    And finally – what else could this affect? This is such a fundamentally important question that really I could have just had that as a singular bullet point. How does your data flow? Are apps that are part of the data flow process going to play nice with your changes? What is connecting to it? Do you even know? What is your plan when you get a ton of support calls because things aren’t working that you didn’t even know about? If you’ve never encounter this type of scenario – go take a look at the book: The Phoenix Project. I listened to the audio version years ago and seriously LOL’d at some parts because I felt like I had lived it. I’m not alone in this.

    Final thought: Before being the superhero and trying to fix something super fast in Production, stop and think. You’ll probably find a temporarily solution that will hold you over until you’ve tested out any major changes. And that’s your tidbit from the trenches for today.

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  • PBI: Report couldn’t access the data source

    You’ve opened a report in PowerBI Service and you get the dreaded “This report couldn’t access the data source. Contact <author name> the author, to have it fixed.”

    Image of the error message.

    As we are expanding our report offerings and learning more with PBI Service, we get this message a lot. Often it’s a security issue, and this post isn’t about that rabbit hole, but rather a short and sweet reminder about a preliminary check that is often overlooked: is your data source up and running?

    A lot of times in our Dev environment we’ve had something go wonky with our tabular model and need to re-Process the database. (That’s what dev environments are for – right?) This is what happened this morning when one of our developers reached out with this error message. As I first started heading down the security route, I paused and decided to check the database first. Ding-dong! Nothing weird in PBI, it was our tabular model. A quick checked of a few tables in the cube confirmed that it wasn’t giving anything to anyone. Reprocessing the cube and then refreshing both the data AND the page(s) that give the error message in PBI cleared everything up.

    Moral of the story and to put a twist on Occam’s Razor: check the easiest thing first.

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  • Presenting… Me! At SQLBits 2023

    At the end of last year I vowed to get back into speaking. I’m in a great place in my new job and have had some time to do some training I wanted to catch up on. And so, on a whim, I submitted a session to SQLBits 2023 (yes on the last day, don’t judge). For those not in the know, SQLBits is one of the largest data conferences in the WORLD (don’t believe me? Look at the stats on the website!). It’s also in Newport, Wales. And I’m not…

    Traveling is not always an option with small kids and my husband’s schedule, but I noticed that the organizers were accepting a small number of remote sessions. Even better, you had the option to change to in-person if your situation changed. Thus the “I don’t know right now if I can travel to Wales at that time” excuse was eliminated.

    Then came the theme. Having organized a fair bit of SQL events in Atlanta years ago, we always went big on the theme. My inner geek LOVES a good themed event! Can you guess what the theme is for SQLBits this year?

    Some random picture I took in Denmark at some place I forget now.

    DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS.

    IN WALES. (My kids actually have tiny red dragons from our friends that were living in Wales for a bit.) That settled it, I was going to submit: if only for the small chance that I would be able to do something – I have no idea what – along the lines of a D&D theme. So on the last day, probably the last hour, I went ahead and submitted a session.

    AND IT WAS ACCEPTED. Hoolllly Guacamollllllle.

    SQLBits agenda with my session on it: Migrating data solutions to the cloud - a checklist.

    The official title: Migrating data solutions to the cloud – a checklist.

    Session Summary: So you’re the data person in your company and you need to look to the sky. Maybe you’ve been wanting to do it for a while, maybe it’s a mandate coming from the top. What are the steps you need to think about? Where do you even start? What are the risks? How can you begin to wrap your head around all the different things you have to coordinate? Companies don’t just need the IDEA that they should move to cloud, but a guide on how-to-do it. This session will not only give you that guide to get you going, but a foundation to take to your bosses to show just how awesome you really are.

    Put aside I was actually shocked, I’ll admit to getting a little teary-eyed. I’m incredibly honored to be speaking among many of my idols and droves of speaker friends that I admire. Like blown away honored. TBH, I’m was a little disappointed that I’d have to miss other sessions that are playing at the same time. Fortunately the sessions are recorded, so I’ll still be able to catch them at other times.

    If you are interested in attending my session , it’s on Saturday March 18th (the free day!!!) at 8:40 AM CDT (that’s 1:40 PM Newport time). I’m super happy (for many reasons) to be presenting on Saturday – but the conference itself is from March 14th – March 18th: 5 whole days of data goodness with a side of D&D theme. (I went ahead a bought a basic D&D kit for Christmas to indoctrinate my littles.) The last day is free, but I will be attending virtually for multiple days because this conference really is filled with a lot of incredible training opportunities.

    On that note, GO REGISTER. The Early bird pricing ends on the 13th. For the cynics among you, I do not get anything for you registering except the warm and fuzzy feeling that I’m helping the community. Here – I’ll even put a convenient copy/paste link for you: https://events.sqlbits.com/2023/pricing. For those of us that can’t attend in person, there is a virtual option at a 30% discounted price.

    Well, that’s all I wanted to announce. I’m officially presenting for a major international conference. Little ole me. (Special thanks to New Stars of Data and others for getting me started – more on that later.) Hope to see you there on the screen or in some of the community portals. Or maybe even in-person with a little magic.

    Picture of female wizard from D&D
    Copywrite: https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/wizard-5e-class-guide
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  • PBI: When you can’t change from a live connection

    First off, I want to say I never intended to start a lot of my posts about Power BI. There are plenty of experts out there and I am merely an accidental PBI Admin and advocate for our Power BI platform. So why should I be writing about a topic I’m constantly learning new things about? Well, here’s the thing: when you are in the middle of learning things and you don’t find a quick and easy answer, that may be a good time to say “hey, maybe I should blog about it”.

    And I think it was Kimberly Tripp’s keynote at PASS Data Community Summit 2022 that reminded me that it’s 100% ok to write about things other people have written about. In fact, several people there mentioned this same thing. Share what you have learned – it’s quite possible you bring a different perspective that will help someone along the way. And if all else fails, you may forget the solution and years down the road google it only to find your own post. (#LifeGoals)

    Rihanna with ponytail - text: "Yup thats me"

    Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about WHEN YOU CAN’T CHANGE FROM A LIVE CONNECTION in Power BI.

    Recently, I’ve been advocating that we consolidate our reporting systems. We have a ton and with an extremely small team, it’s a huge headache to manage them all. Admin-ing reports are only supposed to be a small portion of my week-to-week tasks. (Hint: it’s not.) Plus, some of our reporting systems are just not that good. I won’t list all the different systems, but we are lucky enough to have Power BI as part of our stack and as such, I’m wanting to move as much as we can to our underutilized Power BI service. This includes our Power BI Report Server reports.

    Since we needed to make some changes to some reports we had on Power BI RS, and wanted to reap some of the benefits of Power BI service with them, we decided these reports would be a good test group to move over. The changes were made in the newer version of PBI Desktop (instead of the older version of desktop we have to use with PBI RS) and we were ready to load them up to our Power BI service. This is where it got a little sticky.

    Sticky buns with sticky spoon next to it.

    sticky buns… mmmmmmm

    FOCUS.

    When I uploaded a new report, I remembered it was going to create a “dataset” with the report. Even if the lineage showed the dataset went to a live connection to a database. (In the case of our test case reports, they were connected to a SSAS database). Note, these datasets don’t seem to actually take any space when connected to a live connection, hence my quotes.

    Shows a newly created dataset when you upload a new report.

    A dataset for every report? Given the number of reports we needed to move over, all with the same live connection, this didn’t make sense to me. Even if the dataset was just a passthrough. (Did I mention how I really hate unnecessary objects in my view? It eats away at me in a way I really can’t describe.)

    Diagram showing current state of a dataset for each report, even when connected to 1 data source.

    So I thought – “why not just create 1 live connection dataset and have all the reports in the workspace connect to that?” (We also use shared dataset workspaces, and if you are using that method, this still applies. In this case I wanted to use deployment pipelines, and as of the writing of this post, that wasn’t doable with multiple workspaces per environment .) I built my new dataset, uploaded it, and prepared to connect my report to the new one.

    SCREECH. Nope. After all that, when I opened my shiny new report updated RS report in PBI Desktop, I didn’t even get the option to change the connection.

    Report showing live connection

    Darn it. I couldn’t switch it to the new dataset. My only option was the original live connection. I couldn’t even attempt to add another data source.

    I grudgingly loaded the report back up to PBI Service and now I had to look at 2 datasets while I noodled. Blerg. (I’ll mentioned again how much I hate a cluttered view.) Technically I could delete my test case dataset, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. An idea occurred to me: let me download the newly uploaded file from the PBI Service, because logically it had created a new dataset to use when I uploaded it and the lineage showed it in the path.

    I opened the report in the service, choose File–>Download this file, and then selected the “A copy of your report with a live connection to data online (.pbix)” option. (Actually I tried both, but the other way was a fail.)

    Then I opened it in PBI Desktop… Meh. It looked the same.

    Wait a minute! What is that at the bottom??? “Connected live to the Power BI dataset”!

    I check the data source settings again under Transform data – BINGO! Now I had the option to switch the dataset from my Power BI service. Which I happily did.

    After this was done, I saved and reloaded the report to PBI Service and checked the data lineage of the dataset – It was connected to the new dataset! YAY!!!!!! Since all the reports in this workspace used the same SSAS database, I could connect them all to the same singular dataset. Bonus that when it came time to setup the deployment pipeline, I only needed to change the data source rules for one dataset in each proceeding environment.

    Some may say this is overly obsessive. Maybe. But when you think along the lines of maintenance or verifying data lineage, I now only needed to check 1 dataset instead of going through a whole list. That can be a timesaver when troubleshooting problems.

    AND it’s prettier. AND there may be other reasons you want to change that connection and this should help along the way. AND there was another big reason I was going to list, but now I’m thinking of sticky buns again so we will just leave it right there. It’s time for lunch.

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  • SSRS/PBI RS Error: Cannot read the next data row for the dataset

    SSRS/PBI RS Error: Cannot read the next data row for the dataset

    I’m an accidental SSRS / Power BI Report Server / PBI.com Administrator, along with my other do-all-things-data duties. It’s been a hot minute (cough years) since I’ve messed around in SSRS and I’m relatively new to PBI – both from the reporting and the administering side. Years ago I did some work with Tableau, but my most recent work in that realm was more R and Python based. Suffice to say – I run into issues a lot. Particularly with PBI Report Server (PBI RS).

    Pssst – hint – PBI Report Server is basically the same as SSRS, so if you find some obscure problem and everything you google results in regular PBI answers, try googling the same problem with SSRS. Different database name, same almost everything else. YOU’RE WELCOME. You have no idea how much time I’ve just saved you.

    That said, this specific error I came across was in SSRS, but really you could get this error from any of the reporting products.

    You’ may receive an error that vaguely resembles this:

    An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)
    Cannot read the next data row for the dataset <objectname> (rsErrorReadingNextDataRow).
    For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors

    While there are probably MANY reasons you may receive this error, I’m going to talk about one here: XML. That’s right, your old frienemy XML.

    In our case, we were getting XML documents from AX/various sources, and storing them in another database in an ntext column. <insert obligatory “I didn’t build it” disclaimer>. So when another process was pulling it … say for a report... it was barfing all over the place. Running a snippet of sql that the report was using, resulted in a more helpful message:

    Msg 9402, Level 16, State 1, Line 15
    XML parsing: line 1, character 38, unable to switch the encoding

    What’s in line 1 of all these xml documents? The XML Prolog.

    You wanna know something else? It’s optional. And that pesky little UTF-8 encoding is causing all of your woes. My suggestion: find what is adding the prolog to your XML docs and get rid of it. (Unless it’s a person, then just tell them to cut it out.)

    There are alternatives you can do, but I wouldn’t recommend them. I’ll list some here in case you want to experiment (I didn’t.) You could clean the data and remove the prolog (aka declaration or header information), but that’s a messy solution that will probably have to be changed over time. (More than you would think at first glance.) If you are on SQL Server 2019 or above, you could also consider using the UTF-8 encoding support they introduced – even at the column level – but that could have unintended consequences, and again, unplanned maintenance down the road. Personally, I have enough to do – thank you very much. (If you want to investigate this route here’s a handy dandy little article Introducing UTF-8 support for SQL Server. )

    If you aren’t dealing with an ntext column, then you may have some additional alternatives here: XML Parsing – Unable to switch encoding using utf-8 when casting from NVARCHAR. But again, you run into the issue of changing column types/lengths and from personal experience, that can cause other big headaches. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

    That’s it. I didn’t really plan on making my first kinda techie article to be about SSRS/PBI/XML – but it happened to me today and now it is yours. Use it as you want or stuff it in a turkey.

    Speaking of turkey: my daughter drew a great pic last night of a turkey that didn’t look exactly like a turkey because she “wanted to draw a turkey that people wouldn’t want to eat”. Unfortunately it got messed up and I can’t share it with you. As a poor substitute, I give you a turkey from Summer of 2021 that was contemplating his attack on ME.

    Turkey about to attack me.

    Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

    –Data Work Mom

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  • PASS Data Community Summit 2022 Schedules – Part 2

    Note:  I decided not to add all the links like I did in Part 1. That took a crazy amount of time and I’m not feelin it while traveling. It’s easy enough to log on to the PASS Data Community Summit 2022 website and check out the info or go old school and google it. I will let this fall in the mom lesson #124 of “don’t do for them what they can do for themselves”. Call it tough love.

    PASS Data Community Summit Part 2: The Thursday/Friday edition.

    Originally I thought I was going to post this over the weekend, but we had some unexpected trip-ups of a environment promotion I had to tend to: Ahhh –  fun times of trying to get things done under the wire before you leave for a trip. You know not to do anything major, but the small emergencies can get ya too. And of course everyone wants THEIR thing done before you leave. Especially before the holidays kick in. I totally get it.

    So while I’m sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my [now] delayed flight, I wanted to get Part 2 in real quick. Well, at least before my battery goes kahpoot.  I wrote part of this at the airport, but had to finish after a day of hilarity ensued. This is a somewhat shortened version

    Thursday: November 17th, 2022

    Thursday I decided to do a little different than Wednesday. I’ll probably be exhausted from late travel on Monday catching up with me and then intense focus on Tuesday and Wednesday and thought shorter sessions may more be inline. Again, this could and will probably change by Thursday – I make no guarantees.

    Breakfast event: Breakfast with the Microsoft team: SQL Futures and Strategy. You had to sign up for this event separately, and thankfully I did a few weeks back because I saw today that the registration is now closed. This is an early morning event, but since it won’t require much focus I think I’ll be ok.

    8:00 AM – 9:15 AM – Keynote: Doing More with Less: The Challenges Ahead for Every Data Professional – Steve Jones, Jakub Lamik, Kathi Kellenberger, David Bick, and Arneh Eskandari

    This should be an interesting keynote as it is always on my mind. Knowing what to plane for is pretty essential in our field.

    9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Architecture Options in Data Warehousing and Modeling – Leslie Weed

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • Implementing Intelligent Edge Solutions with Azure IoT & AI – Mihail Mateev  (9:30 AM – 10:45 AM)
    • Storytelling with Data in Power BI – Pragati Jain  (9:45 AM – 10:45 AM)
    • Database DevOps in Azure: Prepare for Ludicrous Speed! – Pete Benbow  (9:30 AM – 10:45 AM)
    • How to Maintain the Same Level of utilities in Cloud Deployments – Denny Cherry (9:30 AM – 10:45 AM)
    • Use your Baseline to find Problem Queries – Allen White
    • Moving an Availability Group to a New Environment without Downtime – Steve Hall (9:30 AM – 10:45 AM)
    • Securing and Protecting Content in Power BI: Practical Tips – Melissa Coates  (9:30 AM – 12:30 PM)

    10:15 AM – 10:45 AM: Getting Started with Database DevOps – Liz Baron

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • How to Use PowerShell to Get Data From Any Power BI REST API – Gilbert Quevauvilliers
    • Azure Data Factory Essentials for SSIS Developers – Tim Mitchell

    11:15 Am – 11:45 AM: Modern Data Warehousing with Azure Synapse Analytics – Ginger Grant

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • Monitoring SQL Server at No Cost – Danilo Dominici (11:30 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Performance Tuning for Azure Cosmos DB – Hasan Savran (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Women in Tech: Becoming the Ally – Deepthi Goguri (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Getting Started with Database Source Control – Kathi Kellenberger
    • Kusto Query Language – The Next Query Language You Need to Learn – Hamish Watson (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Stabilize Query Performance without Changing Code – Erin Stellato
    • Durable (non-technical) Strategies for Success with Analytics – Tom Huguelet (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Useful Insights into Azure Synapse Data Explorer –  Warren Rocchi (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)
    • Azure Data Factory ABCs – David Alzamendi (11:15 AM – 12:30 PM)

    12:00 PM – 12:30 PM: Implementing a Datalake House in Azure Databricks – Jeff Renz

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • Getting Started With Unit Testing in tSQLt – Sebastian Meine

    12:30 PM – 2:15 PM: Women as Tech Leads – Tackling the Challenges – Shabnam Watson, Jen McCown, Anna Hoffman, Blythe Morrow, Leslie Andrews

    2:30 PM – 3: 45 PM: I’m still undecided here. 2 great ones on completely different topics.

    • Keeping your data fresh in Power BI – Patrick LeBlanc, Adam Saxton
    • Data Driven Disease Damage Control – Helge Rege Gardsvoll

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • Automate Development Database Refresh from Production – Andre Quitta (2:30 PM – 3:00 PM)
    • Finding the Right Data Types – Kevin Wilkie
    • Using Power BI with Lots of Data – Paul Turley
    • Fold on Tight – What is a Query Folding and Why Should I Care? Nikola Ilic (3:30 PM – 4:00 PM)
    • Getting Started Building Data Solutions on Azure – Hugo Barona (3:30 PM – 4:00 PM)
    • Practical Data Engineering with Spark – John Miner (2:30 PM – 3:30 PM)
    • Unit Testing T-SQL – Jay Robinson
    • Coaching for Managers: An Introduction – Eduardo Gregorio
    • Practical Experiences from Working with Synapse – Mathias Halkjær and Brian Bønk
    • Choosing the Azure SQL DB Tier: Tales from the Trenches – Reitse Eskens  (2:30 PM – 3:00 PM)
    • Better Data Governance with Purview – Kelly Broekstra  (2:30 PM – 3:30 PM)
    • Better Together: Power BI and Azure Synapse Analytics – Bradley Schacht
    • VLTs: Very Large Tables – Problems, Options, THE Solution! – Kimberly Tripp

    4:15 PM – 5:30 PM: Deploy a Self-Service Analytics Sandbox in Azure Synapse Analytics – Oscar Zamora and Tahir Abdullah

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • How to use Data Lineage in Azure Purview? – Erwin de Kreuk
    • How to Tune a Multi-Terabyte Database for Optimum Performance – Jeff Taylor
    • Migrating your Data to the Cloud? Look Out! Here’s What you Need to Know – Emanuele Meazzo
    • Kusto Query Language – The Next Query Language You Need to Learn –  Hamish Watson (4:15 PM – 5:15 PM)
    • From SQL Server to Cosmos DB in 75-Minutes – Martin Catherall

    Friday November 18th, 2022

    Sadly on Friday, my flight time was changed to 2 hours earlier. Meaning that I’ll really only have morning to grab some sessions. If I leave by about noon, then I should be ok – so after the keynote and first session, I’ll probably be only attending the hall-sessions I keep hearing about. A layover in Phoenix may be allow me an online session – but I also may be completely done by then.

    8:00 AM – 9:15 AM Keynote: 30+ Years of Innovation: How Do We Keep Up with Technology? – Kimberly Tripp

    Another pretty on-point keynote on a subject that I continue to hear people talk about through the years.

    9:30 AM – 10:45 AM: Building a Regret-free Foundation for your Data Factory – Meagan Longoria

    Alternate/On-demand options:

    • GitHub + You + Microsoft Docs – William Assaf
    • Power Up Your Data Warehouse with Pre-ETL Processing – Erin Dempster
    • Power BI Composite and Hybrid Models – Alex Whittles
    • Query Shaping – Advanced Query Tuning – Edward Haynes   9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Power BI: From Self-Service to Enterprise – Just Blindbæk  10:15 AM – 10:45 AM
    • Data Transformation Magic with Power Query – Jackie Kiadii
    • SSDT Methodologies for SQL Server DevOps – Eitan Blumin  9:45 AM – 10:45 AM
    • Intro to SQL Server Tools – Deborah Melkin  10:15 AM – 10:45 AM
    • Performance Monitoring, Tuning and Scaling Azure SQL Workloads – Deepthi Goguri and Surbhi Pokharna
    • Introduction to SQL Audit and Audit Reports – Daniel Maenle 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM

    The rest of these will have to be on-demand options for me, but I still wanted to list them since they were are part of my favorites group.

    On-demand:

    • Tracking History: Temporal Tables vs Ledger Tables – Ed Leighton-Dick 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM
    • How to Fix a Report I didn’t Build – An Ugly Baby Story  – Reid Havens 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Improve Performance by Automating the Query Store – Chad Crawford 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Analyzing Azure Monitor Log Data for Azure SQL Database – Taiob Ali 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Creating a career portfolio using GitHub – Joshua Higginbotham  11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Azure Synapse Analytics and the Power of Datamarts – Joanna Podgoetsky 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Enterprise Semantic Models in Power BI Premium  – Christain Wade and Kay Unkroth 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Power BI – Discover DAX Fundamentals Through Common Mistakes – Fowmy Abdulmuttalib – 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Pro Tools for Performance Tuning: Baselines, Monitoring and Workload Tests – Martin Guth  11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Can Microsoft Purview Answer All your Data Governance Needs – Angela Henry 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM
    • How to Run a Successful Proof of Concept (PoC) –John Martin   2:30 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric (data architecture soup!) – James Serra 2:30 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Handle Azure SQL Auditing With Ease – Josephine Bush 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
    • Architecting for High Performance SQL Server on Virtual Machines – Anthony Nocentino   2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
    • Testing your Data Factory – Benjamin Kettner and Frank Geisler 2:30 PM – 3:45 PM
    • The Autistic Data Professional’s Guide to the Job Search – Chris Voss  2:30 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Migrate Your SSIS Skills to Azure Data Factory – Koen Verbeeck  3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
    • When to Stop Tuning a Query – Milos Radivojevic 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
    • The Dream Team: Synapse Analytics Serverless SQL Pools and Pipelines – Andy Cutler 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
    • Power BI Model Development Best Practices in a Team – Mathias Thierbach 4:15 PM – 5:30 PM
    • Performance Mythbusters – Paul Randal 4:15 PM – 5:30 PM

    That’s it. That’s the full shabang. If you are at Summit and see me – feel free to say hello! I’ll be the short lady that looks kinda mom like.

  • PASS Data Community Summit 2022 Schedules – Part 1

    Note: Sessions listed here are ones I am specifically interested in for one reason or another at the time of this writing. It’s a mix of one part stuff I think will be helpful to my company, one part things I’m SUPER interested in, and one part sitting in sessions with a group of speakers that I know and want to hear. Sessions that were in-person had a higher priority when I had to choose between different sessions, which is perhaps unfair, but with traveling I want to be in-person as much as possible. Sessions not listed have zero baring on their quality – there are simply only so many hours in a day – even with the on-demand option.

    Inspired by Louis Davidson‘s post: The PASS Data Community Sessions I am Most Excited For, I decided to write my own. Because all that time I’ve obsessed spent looking at the schedule should be put to some use AND I’m hoping it will help me get over my writers block. That said, after looking at the schedule I created with the Favorites I tagged, I realized that this post would probably be best in multi-parts. Part 1 will focus on Tuesday and Wednesday activities.

    All the sessions!

    There is a lot of sessions in this post, but basically I’m trying to plan for next week and the next 12 months. Also with 489 sessions, obviously my choice can and will change over time. But I like to have a plan. LIKE REALLY REALLY like to have a plan. An initial one and one I can pivot to quickly if needed.

    I’m not going to rehash what PASS DCS 2022 is, you can get all the info here: https://passdatacommunitysummit.com/. If you can’t attend in-person for any reason but still want to attend – there is a great online option and an option for on-demand recordings. I attended online last year (which was the only option) and was pretty impressed with the ability to interact with others, even outside the sessions. This year I will be in Seattle for the event, (thanks awesome company that I work for!) but they also purchased the 12 month on-demand recordings option. That way I don’t have to always choose between sessions: just which ones I see during the summit. (Note: links to sessions probably require you register for the site. You are on your own for that.)

    I’m guessing that a lot of people choose the All-In-One Bundle, but I did a more ala-carte registration. 3-day conference + One Day Pre-Con + On-demand recordings for 12 months. My company saved a whole 7 dollars going this route – but I really wanted the on-demand recordings and I wasn’t sure how great I’d be at pre-cons. <insert record scratch>

    I’ll be honest – pre-cons kinda scare me. I’m neuro-diverse and 8 hours is a long time to hold my attention and I get big anxiety about it. That said, I made it through grad school with a 3.93 (dangit worldwide pandemic)  learning Python/R, analytics, statistics, AI, etc., so I realize that it may be all in my head. [so’s everything 1:49]. I signed up for one pre-con, and if that goes well, than I may go for 2 next time.

    Tuesday

    Choosing between Pre-cons was pretty difficult. Like SUPER DUPER difficult. Ones that particularly interested me were:

    Ultimately I went with Denny’s Azure Infrastructure pre-con as it aligns best with key initiatives for my company. I’m on a small Cloud CoE team and we are planning some complicated moves to the cloud; I want to make sure I have my ducks in row – particularly with best practices. I’ve been privileged to see many of Denny’s presentations back when I was an organizer for SQL Sat in Atlanta, and I’m super excited to get to attend one of his pre-cons. Also, I’m studying for several certification exams (which one depends on the day), and this will reinforce topics that may be outside some of my current experience.

    Just by happenstance, I have also signed up for Denny’s PASS Karaoke Party 2022. I’ve only been to Karaoke once in my life, and even then I was just a backup dancer (if you can really even be a backup dancer to Gangsta’s Paradise“), so this should be interesting. Truth be told, haven’t been out-out since about 4 years ago, so I’m game. Just don’t expect me to sing or stay out too late (I’ve got a big next day!)

    Wednesday

    Here is where it gets super complicated. Mostly because I keep changing my mind. Some sessions I initially planed on, I saw later were online and I went back and changed them for in-person sessions. I have some internal conflict doing this for multiple reasons (another post for another day) , and I may go and change things 10x by Wednesday (or there may be times that my “overwhelmedness” kicks in), so nothing is really set in stone.

    Luckily I purchased the 12 month on-demand option (I get nothing for writing this in case you are wondering), thus I have a pretty sizeable list of alternates. For any of the times listed below, you will sometimes see a different time listed in the alternates section. This is because the session has a slightly different time than the original. I will spare you the different colored highlights in my original OneNote doc, because I don’t need to expose all the crazy.

    Drum role please….Here is my current schedule.

    8:00 AM – 9:15 AM: Transform your Data Estate with Microsoft’s Intelligent Data Platform. Keynote – Rohan Kumar

    Keynotes are always good for “big picture” info and this one is right in line with my company’s needs: integrating databases, analytics, and governance.

    9:30 AM – 10:45 AM: Confession – I still haven’t made up my mind on this one yet. Here are my 2 main choices. I have some experience in both, but I feel like I need a reset.

    Alternate/on-demand options

    11:15 AM – 12:30 PM: Tips and Tricks for Azure Migrations – Melody Zacharias

    Alternate/On-demand options

    2:30 PM – 3:00 PM: Another one I still haven’t fully decided on. So sue me.

    Alternate/On-demand options

    3:15 PM – 3:45 PM: AMA with the Azure Data Community Advisory Board – Deborah Melkin, Rie Merritt, Monica Rathbun, Tillmann Eitelberg, Wolfgang Strasser, Gaston Cruz, and Javier Villegas

    Alternate/On-demand options

    4:15 PM – 5:30 PM: Lightning Talks 1 – Andy Yun, Blythe Morrow, David Bojsen, Meagan Longoria, John Morehouse, Randy Knight

    Alternate/On-demand options

    Congrats! You’ve made it to the end of Part 1. Excuse me while I go do some *very serious computer schtuff* while listening to Coolio. Or something.

    What are some of the favorite sessions you are looking forward to?

    ,

  • Why Data Work Mom?

    A few years back, a junior associate and I were out to lunch and he informed me that I was the official Work Mom for our company. Our company only had a few senior people, no HR, and lots of junior people. Evidently I had become the go to person for all things data and “off the record” related. How to deal with a client that screams at you? Go talk to Kristina. How to do that thing in SQL? Go to Kristina. Feeling overwhelmed and burned out? Kristina. Want to know how to get to the next level? You guessed it – Kristina.

    Given my adult son was similar in age to most of our junior staff – it really made sense. A dose of pragmatic, from someone who cares. For anyone that wanted to succeed, I wanted to help. I was tired of all the websites and people moaning and groaning about millennials and Gen Z – their expectations made sense to me. (Incidentally, I think this is why females in my generation potentially make great leaders for younger generations – but that’s a topic for another day.)

    The more I thought about being a work mom, the more I liked the idea. Because I like being the person you trust with your professional problems; be it data related or not. And with decades of experience, I’ve helped people of all generations along the way. So here I am: your Data Work Mom. The mom that wants you to succeed. No matter if you are 12 or 82. The mom that also learns things along the way and passes it on.

    This blog will serve to help others learn data related topics, find reliable resources, learn architecture/engineering topics, alert you to happenings in the community, assist in lifting people up, discuss leadership topics, and include things that fall into that “off the record” category. Technical items will mainly focus on Microsoft products such as SQL Server, Azure, PowerBI, Synapse, etc. – but that may not always be the case. I’ve done a lot in R, Python, AI, and some may be published as is – irrespective of the platform. I may even sneak in some Google CoLab from time-to-time and general theory topics that are not restricted to any one platform or product.

    Let’s get to work!