Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 06-12-2023 Cooking, Father's Day, & the Shrinking Household

 Hello Dear Reader! This past week was a busy one.  As we've started to settle into the new house we are transitioning from eating out or having meals delivered, to knowing where the pots & pans are so we can cook again.

I made a really nice beef stew and butter chicken from scratch.  My family is full of picky eaters, so the true litmus test of any meal is the answer to the question, "Is this make it again good?".  The answer to both of those dishes was a resounding yes from even my pickest of eaters.  There was one hold out on the butter chicken, but after a rousing review from the rest of the household my son Will tried it with all of the lack-luster enthusiasm of a 5 year old being told to "eat their vegitables".

I was asleep when he made it home from work and heated it up, but the lack of leftovers in the morning told me I could hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner.

This past Sunday was Fathers Day here and in many countries around the world.  It was a great day over here at Casa Ball.  My Mom, Dad, Mother-in-law, little Sister, beautiful Wife, & the kiddos all went to brunch, we watched a Cubs game (to bad they didn't win), and I grilled out burgers. Also our household and my buddy Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri) put together some videos for you all.

Here's one from my family.

Here's one from Neeraj.

And a big HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the Dad and the role models guiding people out there!  Your impact will be felt for generations and is essential to all those that you care for.

Father's day brings the realization closer to home that our household is shrinking.  My youngest is off to visit her Mom until early August and my oldest is off to Summer classes at college.  In the Fall my daughter will be back, but my youngest son goes off to college several hours away.  There is a bitter sweet feeling to all of this.  We've done our jobs properly.  The kiddos are starting to be off in the world.  I will need to figure out how to make smaller portions or have more people over for dinner!

All this to say, I remember when they were little and they wanted your attention non-stop.  If you have kids that are those ages appriceate those times, they will pass by before you know it.  But there are many new adventures still to be had, look forward to those as well.

Alright Dear Reader, let's get to that content!

MONDAY 6/12/2023

On Monday Neeraj Jhaveri released his first SOLO video Microsoft Fabric Decision Trees, Deciding Which Service to USE!!

In this video he walks through some of the documentation that we have for Microsoft Fabric to help you understand what services you should use based on your specific skill sets!

WEDNESDAY 6/14/2023

On Wednesday we posted my latest video Microsoft Fabric, Notebooks, Spark, Writing New Tables to our Lakehouse, & Baseball! I doned my trusty Microsoft Zune t-shirt and walked through how to take data in our Lakehouse that we've created using a shortcut so we do not have data duplication, and then how I walk through some data exploration and write out a data frame as a table in my Lakehouse!

I use this to determine the best day of the week to see my favorite baseball team play, the Chicago Cubs.  The key to this is invoking your imagination to see what it possible when using the service.  If you get a chance I hope you will check it out!

TUESDAY 6/13/2023

On Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table! It was another great show with my colleauges.

As always the STAR of this show is the creators from the Azure Data Community.  Here is the content in order of appearence: 

Neeraj

• Announcing Microsoft Fabric capacities are available for purchase | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric  by Mihir Wagle (he/him) Twitter @Ravskkaur

Bradley

• Working with ALS – ALS Awareness Month 2023  by Steve Hughes Twitter  @DataOnWheels via @SQLServerCentrl

Dan

• Hybrid Flexibility in Azure SQL Managed Instance   by Rie Merrit Twitter @IrishSQL

Josh

• Foldable SQL Regions   by Jess Pomfret Twitter @jpomfret

Neeraj

• Synapse Real-Time Analytics: Discovering the best ways to get data into a KQL database  by Anshul Sharma Twitter @anshuldsharma

Bradley

• Azure chaos STUDIO  by Arun Sirpal  

Dan

• T-SQL Tuesday #163 Invitation – What is the best piece of Career Advice you ever received  by Gethyn Ellis Twitter @gethyn_ellis

Josh

• Announcing a general Availability of SQL Bindings for Azure Functions     by Drew Skwiers-Koballa Twitter @SysAdminDrew

Neeraj

• Things to Do for Father’s Day: 20 Fun Ideas   by Alison Ensign  Twitter @FamilySearch

Bradley

• Get skilled on Microsoft Fabric – the AI-powered analytics platform  by Shannon Lindsay Twitter  @shan_gsd

Dan

• PostgreSQL Tutorial for beginners   by Daniel Calbimonte Twitter @SQLShack

Josh

• Create Your Own Microsoft Fabric Environment  by Kevin Chant Twitter @kevchant

WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader, don't forget we have our Azure Data Community Round Table at 1 PM EST on Tuesday, and today Daniel Taylor (@DBABulldog | Twitter) will have his latest MS Tech Bits posted at 12 PM EST today!!  SECURE Azure SQL Managed Instance Backups with Azure Storage Private Endpoints!! 

Make sure to check that out when it is LIVE.  I hope your weekend was wonderful, if you have something you did that was awesome sound off in the comments!  I love to hear from you.

As always Dear Reader, Thank You for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 06-05-2023 Live 360, the Missing Week, & the Pain in the Back

 Hello Dear Reader! Let's address the missing week.  Last week I was really behind due to the move.  We did not have a Monday video and despite my best efforts a blog did not get out.  It is in the draft's, partially written, and my goal is to try to publish it soon. However, other things are taking precedence.

For example, we moved A LOT of stuff. We had a full crew of able bodied kiddos, all recent High School graduates or current college students, and me.  I did my best to keep up with them.  But they are the heroes of the day.

26 foot truck started off empty at the old house and suddenly, and by suddenly I mean realizing that this new couch while cool was so heavy that it took 7 of us to lift it and get it on the truck and I-will-never-do-that-again had a realiztion that next time we would have movers or just sell the couch with the house because the idea of moving that thing can F@%& ALL THE WAY OFF.... Ahem..... as I was saying.... suddenly we were unpacking all of the large items at the new house. 

Thankfully the unpacking process went faster than the loading process, and by faster I mean we are also selling the bed's with the house; so that does it the house, the couch, and the beds, because we are not going up those stairs with everything again NO THAT IDEA CAN F...... Ahem....

Clearly the next move, movers will be employed.  Hopefully, that will not be for quite a bit of time.  There's still a lot of clean up to do.  There is a lot of things to do with the new house as well.  

Pictures to hang, er, re-hang in a more centered way that reflects less the mad-dash to occupy a house but rather the long term goal to live with artwork being less slightly off-kilter.

The next day we all appeared very sore and tired.  Everyone needed coffee before we could leave the house.  As a treat I took everyone to breakfast at the Walt Disney World's Steakhouse 71 inside of the Contemporary Resort. 

I booked this as a last minute thing.  I wanted to thank everyone for all the hard work.  You can see the amazing cast of family and friends as we awaited our table that morning.  The food was AMAZING.  Seriously, seriously, good.  Normally I take pictures.  That's my thing.  We were all so famished we ate with reckless abandon.  I had Walt's Prime Rib Hash with an over easy egg, we had an order of the Seasonal Pancakes for the table for all to split.  They were blueberry with lemon and they were divine. I had a bite of Sue's filet off the Steak and Eggs.  The whole family came away full, happy, and resolving to make it back to Steakhouse 71 for another breakfast and of course steaks!

When Sue and I took the truck back, we had a beautiful site in store.  It had rained on the way there and was starting to become intermittent.  As I hoped in her car to ride back home we looked up and saw a full end to end rainbow.  What a beautiful site, as we drove it actually became a double end to end rainbow and the end seemed to be at the area surrounding our new home.  Not a bad start.

That was last week. This weekend everything started out pretty good.  We were going to clean Saturday and then had plans for Sunday.  Late Saturday I did something wrong and the pain in my back started.  I was down for the majority of Saturday and Sunday as well.  Thankfully I had a muscle relaxer left over from a neck issue.  I remembered that and took it Sunday night before bed.  I'm doing much better today, but other than a really nice family dinner on Sunday.  Not a lot to write about.

This past week the Tales from the Field crew was busy cranking out videos for this week and next week, as well as coordinating some really cool content drops with the Microsoft Fabric PG for later this month.  

Alright, let's get over to that content!

WEDNESDAY 06-07-2023

On Wednesday we released Microsoft Fabric, VS Code, Notebooks, & Spark! Set it up, connect to a Workspace, EDIT, & Upload!! One of the big questions people have is how do I integrate my existing tools with Microsoft Fabric.

In this video I showed how to connect VS Code to your Microsoft Fabric workspace, how to download, modify, and upload a notebook.  If this interests you, I'd love to hear from you!

TUESDAY 06-06-2023

On Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table!  We started started talking about the weekend and how we wake up feeling sore for a variety of reasons and that Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman) has lost 40lbs!!!  WAY TO GO JOSH!!

As always the star of the show is the content:

Neeraj

• Introducing the end-to-end scenarios in Microsoft Fabric  by Ravs Kaur Twitter @Ravskkaur

Bradley

• Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization, Why?  by Derek Wilson Twitter @thesqlsith

Andres

• Announcing our improved experiment tracking tools in Azure Machine Learning by Ami Patel  

Josh

• Azure SQL DB Private Link / Private Endpoint - Connectivity Troubleshooting  by Sergio Fonseca Twitter @FonsecaSergio  

Neeraj

• AI and Xmind : How to Create A Mind Map with ChatGPT - Xmind: The Most Popular Mind Mapping App on The Planet.  by Jay Twitter @xmind

Bradley

• What’s New in SSDT 17.6: Ledger, Performance, Copilot by Subhojit Basak Twitter @subho4594

Andres

• Understanding ChatGPT Plugins: Benefits, Risks, and Future Developments  by Mary Newhauser  

Josh

• What is Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric  by Reza Rad Twitter @rad_reza

Neeraj

• Thought Leadership: What It Is and How to Master It in 2023  by Margarita Loktionova Twitter @semrush

Bradley

• CREATE AND VERIFY MICROSOFT FABRIC CAPACITY  by Dharmendra Keshari Twitter @Sachit_Keshari

Andres

• Build Intelligent Applications using ChatGPT & Azure Cosmos DB  by Mark Brown Twitter @markjbrown

Josh

• Deploy and run a Azure OpenAI/ChatGPT application on AKS via Bicep  by Paolo Salvatori  

WRAP IT UP

Ok Dear Reader, we've got a video coming your way today.  Neeraj Jhaveri(@Twitter |@Neeraj_Jhaveri) is bringing you Microsoft Fabric Decision Trees, Deciding Which Service to USE!! today!

Tomorrow is our weekly Azue Data Community Round Table featuring content from the community!  If you want to add your content to the list we cover sound off in the comments below.

Wednesday we will have another MS Tech Bits and I hope we will see or interact with you sometime this week.

As always Dear Reader, Thank you for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad

Tales From The Field Weekly Wrap Up for the Week of 05-22-2023 Microsoft Fabric Launch & Moving Home Offices

 Hello Dear Reader!  Sorry this is so late, moving houses has gotten me a bit behind this week.  I will do better next week!

As you may have heard last week Microsoft Fabric was officially unveiled to the world.  As a part of this launch we had a few extra live videos as a part of the larger Digital Event that happened in conjunction with Microsoft Build!  We have a ton still to come on Microsoft Fabric and there will be LOTS of videos so stay Tuned!

Also as I previously mentioned, we are moving.  This weekend was a very seminal moment for me.  On Friday after 4 delayed installation attempts the internet was installed in the new house.  That can only mean one thing to me.  Time to move the office.  Once I move the office, I'm working there.  So this weekend I packed up everything, moved it, and set up the office.  From here on out I'm in the new house!

I'm really excited.  While it will not show up on the videos, the ceilings are really high.  I've had pictures, awards, mementos from over my career that have often been packed up in a closet. For the first time I have space to put it all out and it's really kinda awesome.

Lot's of feelings go into this move.  The house we are leaving has been very good to us.  This is where we all truly became the family we are today, went through some very difficult and painful moments, high school for both my boys, COVID, elementary school for my daughter, the kids started dating (something I'm still not sure I'm ready for), some brilliant wonderful happy moments, game nights, movies nights, movie premieres, and BBQ's.

Cheers to you old house, thanks for the memories.... and I hope we get some of our deposit back!

Ok Dear Reader, onto the content.

MONDAY 5-22-2023

On we released my latest video USE Azure Managed Identity to Backup Azure SQL Managed Instance to Blob Storage, NOT SAS Tokens!!

In this video I demo how easy it is and discuss why you should be using Managed Identity instead of SAS tokens to perform your Azure SQL Managed Instance COPY_ONLY backups.  This was a lot of fun to make and a great video

WEDNESDAY 5-24-2023

On Wednesday Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @neeraj_jhaveri) and I presented an Introduction to Microsoft FABRIC!! How to Enroll, How to Opt in, How to build a Data Warehouse!! 

My love for Neeraj has never been a secret the man get's a big introduction on everyone of our Tuesday Azure Data Community Round Tables, and the fact that we got to break the news of Microsoft Fabric meant the fireworks were flying!  We covered how you enroll, towards the end we covered how Power BI Admins make sure to opt into the preview, and I showed how to create a Data warehouse and ingest data!

THE PRE-SHOW

As if that wasn't enough the Tales from the Field team was all together myself, Neeraj, Josh Luedeman (Twitter| @JoshLuedeman), Andres Padilla (Twitter | @Nodestreamio), & Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) were joined by Adam Saxton (Twitter | @AwSaxton) one half of the dynamic duo of Guy in a Cube(Twitter | @GuyinaCube),  Kal Yella, and the wonderful Bradley Schacht (Twitter | @BradleySchacht) joined us to kick off the Microsoft Fabric Digital Event for Day 1, with the Microsoft Fabric Digital Event Pre-Show Day 1.

We started off by finding out that the Power BI CAT and Azure Synapse CSE Team were now the Fabric CAT Team!  We discussed Day 1, feedback from customers, questions we had seen, and much more.  You definitely want to check it out!

THURSDAY 5-25-2023

As if one extra live show was JUST NOT ENOUGH on Thursday we came back to do the Microsoft Fabric Digital Event Pre-Show Day 2. Adam Saxton, Kal Yella, and Bradley Schacht from the Microsoft Fabric CAT Team joined us.  

We discussed the content from Day 1 of the Digital Event, what you could expect to see on Day 2, and we did DEMO'S!!  Make sure to check this out!

TUESDAY 5-23-2023

On Tuesday we were eagerly awaiting the announcement of Microsoft Fabric on the Build Keynote during the pre-show.  This was our first opportunity to talk about it publicly.  

The star of these shows is, as always the content created by the Azure Data Community.  Without further ado, here it is:

Honorable Mentions

• Microsoft Digital Event Pre-Show: Azure FastTrack, Power BI CAT, & Azure Synapse Analytics PG    by  Bradley Ball, featuring Adam Saxton & Bradley Schacht & Guy in Cube Twitter @SQLBalls, @BradleySchacht, & @GuyInACube

• Microsoft Build 2023 Book of News 

Neeraj

• Using Azure DevOps with Synapse Workspaces to create hot fixes in production environments  by Vytas Suopys Twitter @Vytas Suopys

Bradley

• How to take secure, on-demand backups on SQL Managed Instance  by Zoran Rilak Twitter @zoranrilak

Andres

• Building Interactive Enterprise Grade Applications with Open AI and Microsoft Azure  by Andrei Zaichikov  

Josh

• Spreading your SQL Server wings with serverless SQL Pools  by Kevin Chant Twitter @kevchant

Neeraj

• What Is Responsible AI? | Built In  by Ellen Glover Twitter @BuiltIn

Bradley

• Junior Data Professionals The Key to Every Data Team's Success  by Abhinav Jayanty + Taylor George

Andres

• How to deploy your AI model on Edge devices with Azure  by René Bremer

Josh

• Azure SQL input binding for Azure Functions   by Anuraj Parameswaran Twitter @anuraj

Neeraj

• Generative AI defined: How it works, benefits and dangers Generative AI defined: How it works, benefits and dangers (techrepublic.com)  by Owen Hughes Twitter @owenrdhughes

Bradley

• Reflections on My First-Ever Presentation, Fifteen Years Later  by Tim Mitchell Twitter @Tim_Mitchell

Andres

• An Overview of Microsoft Azure NLP Solutions  by Lida Ghahremanlou  Twitter @lida_ghr

Josh

• Using Docker on Windows with Persistent SQL Server Settings and Databases  by Josephine Bush Twitter @hellosqlkitty

WRAP IT UP

No assignments this week Dear Reader as it is already Thursday.  I will attempt to resume our normal cadence next Monday!  My hope for you is take some time, rest, relax, and think of the fact that I'm moving the heavy stuff during the hot months in Florida.  Then take an extra deep sip of that ice cold <insert beer, mixed drink, or non-alcoholic beverage of choice />.

Until next time Dear Reader and as always, Thank You for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad