Recent Releases and Announcements

• Our immediate response to Hurricane Harvey
  • https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/08/29/immediate-response-hurricane-harvey/
• Power BI Report Server August 2017 Preview now available
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-report-server-august-2017-preview-now-available/
• Cumulative Update #7 for SQL Server 2014 SP2
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4032541/cumulative-update-7-for-sql-server-2014-sp2
• SQL Server 2017 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is now available
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2017/08/02/sql-server-2017-release-candidate-2-rc2-is-now-available/
• Cumulative Update #4 for SQL Server 2016 SP1
  • Cumulative Update 4 (CU4) for Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was also released as a SQL Server Security Bulletin on 8/8/2017, KB4019095. Because of this, you may already have CU4 installed as part of that security bulletin release.
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4024305/cumulative-update-4-for-sql-server-2016-sp1
• Cumulative Update #7 for SQL Server 2016 RTM
  • Cumulative Update 7 (CU7) for Microsoft SQL Server 2016 was also released as a SQL Server Security Bulletin on 8/8/2017, KB4019086. Because of this, you may already have CU7 installed as part of that security bulletin release.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/cumulative-update-7-for-sql-server-2016-rtm/
• Cumulative Update #6 for SQL Server 2014 SP2
  • Cumulative Update 6 (CU6) for Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 2 (SP2) was also released as a SQL Server Security Bulletin on 8/8/2017 (KB 4036996). Because of this, you may already have CU6 installed as part of that security bulletin release.
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4019094/cumulative-update-6-for-sql-server-2014-sp2
• Cumulative Update #13 for SQL Server 2014 SP1
  • Cumulative Update 13 (CU13) for Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was also released as a SQL Server Security Bulletin on 8/8/2017 (KB 4032542). Because of this, you may already have CU13 installed as part of that security bulletin release.
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4019099/cumulative-update-13-for-sql-server-2014-sp1
• Cumulative Update #10 for SQL Server 2012 SP3
  • Cumulative Update 10 (CU10) for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 3 (SP3) was also released as a SQL Server Security Bulletin on 8/8/2017 (KB 4019090). Because of this, you may already have CU10 installed as part of that security bulletin release.
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4025925/cumulative-update-10-for-sql-server-2012-sp3
• Hey Cortana, open Alexa: Microsoft and Amazon's first-of-its-kind collaboration
  • Available later this year, this collaboration will allow you to access Alexa via Cortana on Windows 10 PCs, followed by Android and iOS in the future. Conversely, you'll be able to access Cortana on Alexa-enabled devices like the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show.
  • https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/08/30/hey-cortana-open-alexa-microsoft-amazons-first-kind-collaboration/
• Preview: SQL Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) with Bring Your Own Key support
  • We're glad to announce the preview of Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) with Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) support for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
  • To protect [the] data encryption key (DEK) in the past, you could only use a certificate that the Azure SQL Service managed. Now, with BYOK support for TDE, you can protect the DEK with an asymmetric key that is stored in Key Vault.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/preview-sql-transparent-data-encryption-tde-with-bring-your-own-key-support/
• Windows PowerShell 2.0 Deprecation
  • We recently announced that Windows PowerShell 2.0 is being deprecated in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
  • We do not currently have a timeline to remove Windows PowerShell 2.0, but as we continue to evaluate its usage in the PowerShell ecosystem, we will be working to remove it in a future release. When this decision is made, we will give plenty of notice via official Windows deprecation channels.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2017/08/24/windows-powershell-2-0-deprecation/
• Default compatibility level 140 for Azure SQL databases
  • As of this writing, the default compatibility level for new databases created in Azure SQL Database is 130. Very soon, we'll be changing the Azure SQL Database default compatibility level for newly created databases to 140.
  • 140: in SQL Server 2017 and Azure SQL Database
  • We recommend that database configuration scripts explicitly designate COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL rather than rely on the defaults, in order to ensure consistent application behavior.
  • Databases created prior to the new compatibility level default change will not be affected and will maintain their current compatibility level. Also note that Azure SQL Database Point in Time Restore will preserve the compatibility level that was in effect when the full backup was performed.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlserverstorageengine/2017/08/24/default-compatibility-level-140-for-azure-sql-databases/
• DSC Resource Kit Release August 2017
  • To list all modules that are part of the DSC Resource Kit: Find-Module -Tag DSCResourceKit
  • To list all DSC resources from all sources: Find-DscResource
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2017/08/23/dsc-resource-kit-release-august-2017/
• Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store
  • The Visio custom visual will allow you to visualize data using Microsoft Visio diagrams from within Power BI dashboards and reports.
  • Note: The Public Preview of Visio custom visual is currently supported in the Power BI service and Power BI Desktop. Support for Power BI Mobile apps will arrive soon.
  • With this new visual, you can connect to a Visio diagram hosted on SharePoint or OneDrive for Business. The underlying Power BI data is then automatically and intelligently linked to the diagram based on its shape properties, eliminating the need to do this manually. In just a few clicks, Visio diagrams become yet another interactive Power BI visualization that can help you make informed decisions faster.
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/visio-custom-visual-is-now-in-public-preview-and-available-in-the-store/
• Power BI Desktop August Feature Summary
  • Show values on rows for matrix
  • Custom subtotal settings per level of matrix
  • Scatter chart performance improvements
  • New custom visuals
  • New quick measure: weighted average
  • And more...
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-august-2017-feature-summary/
• Power BI Service and Mobile July Feature Summary
  • Dashboard email subscriptions
  • Dashboard performance inspector
  • Snowflake and SAP BusinessWarehouse DirectQuery now supported for On-premises data gateway
  • Data refresh APIs
  • New Q&A experience on iOS (Preview)
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-service-and-mobile-july-feature-summary/
• Shape the future of Power BI: Join Our User Research Panel
  • Would you like to share your experiences using Power BI?  Make a difference in features as they are being designed by joining our Power BI research panel.
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/join-the-power-bi-user-research-panel/
• August updates to the Azure Analysis Services web designer
  • DAX syntax highlighting for measures,New mini map in JSON editor, Display folder and hierarchy support in the query designer, Table relationship editor
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/august-updates-to-the-azure-analysis-services-web-designer/
• Azure AD authentication extensions for Azure SQL DB and SQL DW tools
  • With the latest SQL server tools release we extended the Azure AD authentication support for SQL DB and DW tools for token-based authentication (Universal authentication) with MFA support.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-ad-authentication-extensions-for-azure-sql-db-and-sql-dw-tools/
• Introducing the Coco Framework for blockchain networks
  • An open-source system that enables high-scale, confidential blockchain networks that meet all key enterprise requirements-providing a means to accelerate production enterprise adoption of blockchain technology
  • Coco offers a trusted foundation with which existing blockchain protocols can be integrated to deliver complete, enterprise-ready ledger solutions
  • Coco is open and compatible with any blockchain protocol. Microsoft has already begun integrating Ethereum into Coco and we're thrilled to announce that J.P. Morgan Chase, Intel and R3 have committed to integrating enterprise ledgers, Quorum, Hyperledger Sawtooth and Corda, respectively.
  • Our intent is to contribute the source code to the community in early 2018
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/announcing-microsoft-s-coco-framework-for-enterprise-blockchain-networks/
• Teradata Bolsters Analytics and Database capabilities for Azure
  • The enterprise-class capabilities of Teradata Database have been enhanced for Microsoft Azure Marketplace. An additional software as a service (SaaS) option from Teradata for the retail and consumer goods segments is Teradata Demand Chain Management (DCM), an application suite that provides forecasting, fulfillment, and demand chain analytics.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/teradata-bolsters-analytics-and-database-capabilities-for-azure/
• Announcing public preview of Azure Batch Rendering
  • Enabling artists, engineers, and designers to submit rendering jobs seamlessly via client applications such as Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, or via our SDK, Azure Batch Rendering accelerates large scale rendering jobs to deliver results to our customers faster.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-public-preview-of-azure-batch-rendering/
• KAP is now available on Azure HDInsight as an HDInsight application
  • Kyligence Analytics Platform (KAP) enables interactive analytics with sub-second query latency on massive dataset.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/bring-interactive-analytics-to-azure-kyligence-analytics-platform-enables-sub-second-query-on-hdinsight/
• Replicated tables now in preview for Azure SQL Data Warehouse
  • Data movement happens in distributed data warehouse systems when tables are joined or aggregated in a manner inconsistent with how they are spread across Compute nodes. Data movement is reduced with Replicated tables because a full copy of data is stored on each Compute node. As a result, queries that required data movement steps to complete now run faster with Replicated tables.
  • Early adopting customers have seen some query runtimes reduce by 40% and up to a 10x reduction in the number of steps required to complete a query.
  • Sample syntax: CREATE TABLE DimDate(...) WITH (DISTRIBUTION = REPLICATE, CLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE INDEX)
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/replicated-tables-now-in-preview-for-azure-sql-data-warehouse/
• Microsoft acquires Cycle Computing to accelerate Big Computing in the cloud
  • We've acquired Cycle Computing, a leader in cloud computing orchestration, to help make it easier than ever for customers to use High-Performance Computing (HPC) and other Big Computing capabilities in the cloud.
  • https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/08/15/microsoft-acquires-cycle-computing-accelerate-big-computing-cloud/
• Announcing the Power BI Solution Template for Azure Activity Log Analytics
  • This template provides analytics on top of your Activity Log in the Azure Portal.
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-activity-log-solution-template/
• Azure Data Factory July new features update
  • Preview for Data Management Gateway high availability and scalability
  • Skipping or logging incompatible rows during copy for fault tolerance
  • Service principal authentication support for Azure Data Lake Analytics
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-data-factory-july-new-features-update/
• Power BI On-premises data gateway August update
  • This update includes the following improvements: Support for IBM Netezza connector; Default to TLS 1.1/1.2; Increased timeout for On-Premises data gateway requests; Updated version of the Mashup Engine
  • https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-on-premises-data-gateway-august-update/
• Imanis Data - Cloud migration, backup for your big data applications on Azure HDInsight
  • We are pleased to announce the availability of Imanis Data on Azure.
  • HDInsight is the only fully-managed cloud Hadoop offering that provides optimized open source analytical clusters for Spark, Hive, Interactive Hive, MapReduce, HBase, Storm, Kafka, and R Server, backed by a 99.9% SLA. Each of these big data technologies are easily deployable as managed clusters with enterprise-level security and monitoring.
  • Imanis Data provides data management software that covers a wide range of use cases that will benefit HDInsight customers including: Migration of on-premise or other cloud big data workloads to Azure HDInsight; Cloud Disaster Recovery; Scalable Backup and Rapid Recovery; Test Data Management; Archiving for compliance and regulatory requirements; Native integration with Microsoft Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Store.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/imanis-data-cloud-migration-backup-for-your-big-data-applications-on-azure-hdinsight/
• On-premises data gateway support for Azure Analysis Services
  • Azure Analysis Services now supports the shared On-Premises Data Gateway which is used with Power BI, Flow, Logic Apps, and PowerApps. The shared gateway allows you to associate many services to one gateway or you can continue to use a dedicated gateway.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/on-premises-data-gateway-support-for-azure-analysis-services/
• Announcing the Just-In-Time VM Access public preview
  • When JIT VM Access is enabled, Azure Security Center locks down inbound traffic to defined ports by creating Network Security Group rule(s). You can request access to the VM when needed, which opens the needed port for an approved amount of time, from approved IP addresses, and only for users with proper permissions. Requests are logged in the Azure Activity Log, so you can easily monitor and audit access.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-just-in-time-vm-access-public-preview/
• Introducing Azure Event Grid - an event service for modern applications
  • With Azure Event Grid, you can subscribe to any event that is happening across your Azure resources and react using serverless platforms like Functions or Logic Apps.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-azure-event-grid-an-event-service-for-modern-applications/
• Early technical preview of JDBC 6.3.1 for SQL Server released
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jdbcteam/2017/08/16/early-technical-preview-of-jdbc-6-3-1-for-sql-server-released/
• A modern database interface for R
  • Two packages which provide a modern database interface for R are the odbc package and the DBI package
  • The odbc package is a from-the-ground-up implementation of an ODBC interface for R that provides native support for additional data types and parameterized queries.
  • The odbc package provides connections with any ODBC-compliant database, and has been comprehensively tested on SQL Server, PostgreSQL and MySQL.
  • The real power comes in being able to use high-level functions from the dplyr package and have the data processing run in the database, instead of in the local R session.
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/a-modern-database-interface-for-r.html
• Azure Network Watcher introduces Connectivity Check (Preview)
  • The Azure Network Watcher Connectivity Check feature helps to drastically reduce the amount of time needed to find and detect connectivity issues in the infrastructure.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-network-watcher-introduces-connectivity-check-preview/
• A New Real-Time AI Platform from Microsoft, and a Speech Recognition Milestone
  • Microsoft unveiled Project Brainwave. A new deep learning acceleration platform which has three main layers - a high-performance distributed system architecture, a hardware DNN engine synthesized onto FPGAs, and a compiler and runtime for low-friction deployment of trained models.
  • Project Brainwave incorporates a software stack that supports a wide range of popular deep learning frameworks, including Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit and Google TensorFlow.
  • Our research team reached that 5.1 percent error rate with our speech recognition system - a new industry milestone that substantially surpasses the accuracy we achieved last year.
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2017/08/24/a-new-real-time-ai-platform-from-microsoft-and-a-speech-recognition-milestone/

Issue Alert

• Critical: Do NOT delete files from the Windows Installer folder. C:windowsInstaller is not a temporary folder and files in it should not be deleted. If you do it on machines on which you have SQL Server installed, you may have to rebuild the operating system and reinstall SQL Server.
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlserverfaq/archive/2013/04/30/do-not-delete-files-from-the-windows-installer-folder.aspx
• Critical: Please be aware of a critical Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 runtime pre-requisite update that may be required on machines where SQL Server 2016 will be, or has been, installed.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlcat/2016/07/28/installing-sql-server-2016-rtm-you-must-do-this/
  • If KB3164398 or KB3138367 are installed, then no further action is necessary. To check, run the following from a command prompt:
  • powershell get-hotfix KB3164398
  • powershell get-hotfix KB3138367
  • If the version of %SystemRoot%system32msvcr120.dll is 12.0.40649.5 or later, then no further action is necessary. To check, run the following from a command prompt:
  • powershell "get-item %systemroot%system32msvcr120.dll | select versioninfo | fl"
• Important: If the Update Cache folder or some patches are removed from this folder, you can no longer uninstall an update to your SQL Server instance and then revert to an earlier update build.
  • In that situation, Add/Remove Programs entries point to non-existing binaries, and therefore the uninstall process does not work. Therefore, Microsoft strongly encourages you to keep the folder and its contents intact.
  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3196535
• Important: You must precede all Unicode strings with a prefix N when you deal with Unicode string constants in SQL Server
  • http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239530
• Important: Default auto statistics update threshold change for SQL Server 2016
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/psssql/2016/10/04/default-auto-statistics-update-threshold-change-for-sql-server-2016/
  • SQL Server 2016:Default is new threshold if database compatibility level is 130. If database compatibility is below 130, old threshold is used (unless you use trace flag 2371)
• Reproducibility: A cautionary tale from data journalism
  • For some unknown reason, a change in the dplyr package in the intervening package caused some data rows ...to be deleted during the data preparation process, and so the results changed
  • Was able to recreate the original results by forcing the script to run with package versions as they existed back in August 2015. This is easy to do with the checkpoint package: just add a line like this: library(checkpoint); checkpoint("2015-08-11")
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/reproducibility-a-cautionary-tale.html
• SQL Performance Counters are Missing
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatform/2017/08/03/sql-performance-counters-are-missing/
• Why Are We Deprecating Network Performance Features (KB4014193)?
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2017/06/13/why-are-we-deprecating-network-performance-features-kb4014193/
• Avoid Availability Group Database Data Loss: Do not Deploy File Share Witness From DFS Namespace
  • A requirement when configuring that File Share Witness is that it is not part of a Distributed File System (DFS) namespace. Adding a file share witness which is part of a DFS can result in split brain and ultimately data loss.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/alwaysonpro/2017/08/29/avoid-availability-group-database-data-loss-do-not-deploy-file-share-witness-from-dfs-namespace/
• Choosing the right server memory for restore and recovery of memory-optimized databases
  • One of the important difference between disk based tables and memory-optimized store is frequency of checkpoints. Automatic checkpointing for in-memory tables occurs every 1.5GB of log records unlike traditional or indirect checkpoints
  • In most scenarios observed by our CSS teams, long recovery times for memory optimized databases is caused by the long tail of log which needs to be recovered for in-memory tables in the database. For these scenarios, running a manual checkpoint before a restart can reduce recovery times
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/choosing-the-right-server-memory-for-restore-and-recovery-of-memory-optimized-databases/

Recent Blog Posts and Articles

• Recover the SSISDB to a New Machine Without a Database Backup
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatform/2017/08/23/recover-the-ssisdb-to-a-new-machine-without-a-database-backup/
• Security and Compliance in Azure Stack
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/security-and-compliance-in-azure-stack/
• SQL Server 2016, Minimal logging and Impact of the Batchsize in bulk load operations
  • In SQL Server 2016, you no longer need to enable trace flag 610 for minimal logging into indexed table
  • In SQL Server 2016, when the bulk load operation causes a new page to be allocated, all of the rows sequentially filling that new page are minimally logged if all the other pre-requisites for minimal logging discussed earlier are met.
  • Rows inserted into existing pages (no new page allocation) to maintain index order are still fully logged, as are rows that are moved as a result of page splits during the load. It is also important to have ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS turned ON for indexes (which is ON by default) for minimal logging operation to work as page locks are acquired during allocation and thereby only page or extent allocations are logged.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/sql-server-2016-minimal-logging-and-impact-of-the-batchsize-in-bulk-load-operations/
• Applications in energy, retail and shipping
  • The Solutions section of the Cortana Intelligence Gallery provides more than two dozen working examples of applying machine learning, data science and artificial intelligence to real-world problems.
  • Solutions included: Customer Churn Prediction, Demand Forecasting for Shipping and Distribution, Energy Supply Optimization, Oil and Gas Tank Level Forecasting
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/gallery-solutions.html
• Correlating xEvents with DMVs
  • In SQL Server 2016 and 2014 SP2 we introduced new xEvent actions query_hash_signed and query_plan_hash_signed, that allow you to join the DMVs with xEvents
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/correlating-xevents-with-dmvs/
• Text categorization with deep learning, in R
  • Describes how to build a text categorization model in R and apply a convolutional neural network (trained using the R interface to the MXNET deep learning platform) to product review data.
  • The talk also provides a brief introduction to convolutional neural networks and one-hot encoding.
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/text-categorization-deep-learning.html
• Buzzfeed trains an AI to find spy planes
  • They trained an artificial intelligence model to identify unusual flight paths in the data. The model, implemented in the R programming language, applies a random forest algorithm to identify flight patterns similar to those of covert aircraft identified in their earlier "Spies in the Skies" story.
  • When that model was applied to the almost 20,000 flights in the FlightRadar24 dataset, about 69 planes were flagged as possible surveillance aircraft.
  • Using this model, Buzzfeed news identified several surveillance aircraft in action during a four-month period in late 2015.
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/buzzfeed-plane-tracking.html
• Reference Architecture for a high availability SharePoint Server 2016 farm in Azure
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/reference-architecture-for-a-high-availability-sharepoint-server-2016-farm-in-azure/
• Reference Architecture for SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA on Azure
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/reference-architecture-for-sap-netweaver-and-sap-hana-on-azure/
• Persisting statistics sampling rate
  • With the most recent SQL Server 2016 SP1 CU4, we released an enhancement for the CREATE and UPDATE STATISTICS command - the ability to persist sampling rates between updates with a PERSIST_SAMPLE_PERCENT keyword.
  • Syntax: UPDATE STATISTICS [dbo].[t1] [idx1] WITH FULLSCAN, PERSIST_SAMPLE_PERCENT = ON
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/persisting-statistics-sampling-rate/
• Plan Backup and Disaster Recovery for Azure IaaS Disks
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/plan-backup-and-dr-for-azure-iaas-disks/
• Collecting performance data with PSSDIAG for SQL Server on Linux
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlcat/2017/08/11/collecting-performance-data-with-pssdiag-for-sql-server-on-linux/
• Find images with images
  • With Microsoft R Server (version 9.1.0) comes the R MicrosoftML package that includes the machine learning transform named FeaturizeImage. It is the image featurization feature that does most of the work, as it uses a deep neural net model that has been pre-trained on millions of images already.
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2017/07/31/find-images-with-images/

Recent Training and Technical Guides

• Introducing Azure Data Lake
  • U-SQL, Explore ADL in the Azure portal, Submit and monitor jobs in the Azure portal, and more
  • https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/introducing-azure-data-lake-17795
• SQL Server 2017 Adaptive QP
  • Memory Grant Feedback
  • Adaptive Joins
  • Interleaved execution
  • https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Data-Exposed/SQL-Server-2017-Adaptive-QP
• New in SSMS: Searching in Showplan
  • In SSMS 17.2, we are including the ability to search in a graphical showplan
  • Use CTRL+F to start a search in graphical showplan (or right-click on a blank area of the plan, and in the context menu click on Find Node option)
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/new-in-ssms-searching-in-showplan/
• [Whitepaper] Protecting SAP Solutions with Azure Site Recovery
  • A new Whitepaper has been written to guide SAP customers through the deployment of Azure Site Recovery for SAP solutions.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/saponsqlserver/2017/08/10/protecting-sap-solutions-with-azure-site-recovery-2/
• Tutorial: Deep Learning with R on Azure with Keras and CNTK
  • Keras is a high-level neural networks API, written in Python and capable of running on top of TensorFlow, CNTK, or Theano. It was developed with a focus on enabling fast experimentation.
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/keras-and-cntk.html
• Bringing AI to BI - Text Analytics in Azure Machine Learning
  • In this post, we describe the approach for building the Bing News template for PowerBI.
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2017/08/08/bringing-ai-to-bi-through-text-analytics-in-azure-machine-learning/
• Highlights of the Data Science Track at Microsoft Ignite
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/data-track-ignite.html
• How to build an image recognizer in R using just a few images
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/image-featurizer.html

Monthly Script and Tool Tips

• Enabling communication traces in C# application for Azure AD authentication with SQL DB using token-based mechanism with Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlsecurity/2017/08/29/enabling-communication-traces-in-c-application-for-azure-ad-authentication-with-sql-db-using-token-based-mechanism-with-multi-factor-authentication-mfa/
• Azure Analysis Services web designer adds visual model editing to the preview
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-analysis-services-web-designer-adds-visual-model-editing-to-the-preview/
• Deploying Analysis Services and Reporting Services Project Types in Visual Studio 2017
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2017/08/23/deploying-analysis-services-and-reporting-services-project-types-in-visual-studio-2017/
• New in SSMS: Performance Dashboard built-in
  • With the new SSMS 17.2, we are releasing the Performance Dashboard embedded as a built-in Standard Report. This means that it is available for any SQL Server instance starting with SQL Server 2008, without any extra downloads or running any extra scripts. Just connect to your server in SSMS and open the Performance Dashboard.
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_server_team/new-in-ssms-performance-dashboard-built-in/
• SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA): Export Data Type Mappings
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/johannh/2017/08/04/sql-server-migration-assistant-ssma-export-data-type-mappings/
• Managing your resources with Azure Cloud Shell
  • Azure Cloud Shell gives you a new way to manage your resources in the Cloud.
  • It's a browser-based shell experience [which] allows you to manage on-the-go from any browser or even the Azure Mobile App.
  • https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/managing-your-resources-with-azure-cloud-shell/
• Token-based authentication including Multi-factor auth (MFA) for Azure SQL DB using Azure Active Directory (AD)
  • Sample application code for token-based authentication with multi-factor (MFA) support for SQL DB using Azure AD authentication
  • https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlsecurity/2017/08/18/token-based-authentication-including-multi-factor-auth-mfa-for-azure-sql-db-using-azure-active-directory-ad/
• How to use H2O with R on HDInsight
  • H2O.ai is an open-source AI platform that provides a number of machine-learning algorithms that run on the Spark distributed computing framework. Azure HDInsight is Microsoft's fully-managed Apache Hadoop platform in the cloud
  • You can also drive H2O from R, but the R packages don't come auto-installed on HDInsight. To make this easy, the Azure HDInsight team has provided a couple of scripts that will install the necessary components on the cluster for you.
  • http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/07/h2o-hdinsight.html

Fany Carolina Vargas | SQL Dedicated Premier Field Engineer | Microsoft Services