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Analytics Platform System (APS) AU5 released
The Analytics Platform System (APS), which is a renaming of the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW), has just released an appliance update (AU5), which is sort of like a service pack, except that it includes...
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Azure SQL Database pricing
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...
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Big Data architectures
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...
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SQL Server 2016 available June 1st!
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...
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New Azure storage account type
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...
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Azure Speed Testing
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...
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Migrate from on-prem SQL server to Azure VM IaaS
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...
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Azure Storage pricing
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...
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SQL Server 2016 is here!
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...
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Azure SQL Data Warehouse pricing
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)....
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Virtualization does not equal a private cloud
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...
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Azure SQL Data Warehouse is now GA
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...
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Multi-tenant databases in the cloud
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...
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What is the Lambda Architecture?
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...
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Azure SQL Database vs SQL Data Warehouse
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,...
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Azure SQL Database new performance level
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...
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SQL Server 2016 real-time operational analytics
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...
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The art of possible with the cloud
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...
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Making sense of Microsoft technology
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...
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Cortana Intelligence Solutions
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...
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