A recent Microsoft blog post announced that they are releasing five new Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) and Developer (MCSD) specialties. These credentials are aligned to Centers of Excellence, used by the Microsoft Partner Network to identify technical competencies that are … Continue reading →
Cortana Intelligence Solutions is a new tool just released in public preview that enables users to rapidly discover, easily provision, quickly experiment with, and jumpstart production grade analytical solutions using the Cortana Intelligence Suite (CIS). It does so using preconfigured solutions, reference … Continue reading →
In my role as a Data Platform Solution Architect (DPSA) at Microsoft, part of my responsibility is to keep up with all the Microsoft on-prem and cloud data-related technology and trends, as well as non-Microsoft technology and trends in areas such … Continue reading →
One thing I try to do in my role with Microsoft is to get clients to think of possible use cases for building solutions in the Azure cloud. To set off light bulbs in their heads. Sometimes this is accomplished … Continue reading →
SQL Server 2016 introduces a very cool new feature called real-time operational analytics, which is the ability to run both analytics (OLAP) and OLTP workloads on the same database tables at the same time. This allows you to eliminate the need … Continue reading →
A new performance level for Azure SQL Database was recently announced, called P15. This new offering is more than two times more powerful than the next best offering, P11. P15 offers 4000 database transaction units (DTU) where P11 offered 1750 … Continue reading →
(updated 8/15/2019) I am sometimes asked to compare Azure SQL Database (SQL DB) to Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW). The most important thing to remember is SQL DB is for OLTP (i.e. applications with individual updates, inserts, and deletes) and … Continue reading →
Lambda architecture is a data-processing architecture designed to handle massive quantities of data (i.e. “Big Data”) by using both batch-processing and stream-processing methods. This idea is to balance latency, throughput, scaling, and fault-tolerance by using batch processing to provide comprehensive and accurate … Continue reading →
For companies that sell an on-prem software solution and are looking to move that solution to the cloud, a challenge arises on how to architect that solution in the cloud. For example, say you have a software solution that stores … Continue reading →
The Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW), that I blogged about here, is now generally available. Here is the official announcement. In brief, SQL DW is a fully managed data-warehouse-as-a-service that you can provision in minutes and scale up in seconds. … Continue reading →
I see a lot of confusion when it comes to creating a private cloud. Many seem to think that by virtualizing your servers in your local on-premise data center, you have created a private cloud. But by itself, virtualization falls … Continue reading →
The pricing for Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW) consists of a compute charge and a storage charge. For compute, it is not based on hardware configuration but rather by data warehouse units (DWU). DWU can be scaled up or down via … Continue reading →
Today is the day: SQL Server 2016 is available for download! You can download all the versions (enterprise, standard, web, express with advanced services, express, developer) of SQL Server 2016 now if you have a MSDN subscription, and you can also … Continue reading →
Azure storage is a great, inexpensive solution for storing your data in the cloud. There are many types of Azure storage options, but I wanted to list here the pricing of the most common type: block blob. The pricing below … Continue reading →
Hopefully you went through my presentations Should I move my database to the cloud?, Introducing Azure SQL Database and Implement SQL Server on an Azure VM and are convinced to move your databases to the cloud. If you are going to migrate to Azure … Continue reading →
Have you ever wondered what Azure region would be the fastest to host your applications when those applications are accessed from your office? Obviously the closest data center would probably be the best choice (each region has multiple data centers), but how … Continue reading →
In Azure, there previously has been only one kind of storage account, which is now called a “General Purpose” storage account. Just introduced is a new kind of storage account, called “Cool Blob Storage”. When creating a storage account, the … Continue reading →
Woo hoo! Microsoft has announced that SQL Server 2016 will be generally available on June 1st. On that date all four versions of SQL Server 2016 will be available to all users, including brand new ones, MSDN subscribers, and existing customers. Here … Continue reading →
Over the last few years I have been involved in reviewing the architectures of various companies that are building or have built big data solutions. When I say “big data”, I’m referring to the incorporation of semi-structured data such as sensor … Continue reading →
Pricing Azure SQL database is difficult because various database service tier options such as database transaction units (DTU’s), max database size, disaster recovery options, and backup retention days are used to determine pricing instead of hardware (CPU/RAM/HD). Generally I recommend starting out … Continue reading →