Cloud on Andy M Mallon - AM²

Microsoft Azure hack for social justice

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 11:00:33 -0400

Microsoft is going to be running a virtual hackathon, running from October 12 through November 20. The theme of the hack will be to use Microsoft Azure to address some social justice issue. I’m thrilled to be joining the judging panel for this event, which is at the intersection of two of my greatest passions–social justice and technology.

How To Fix High DTU Usage on Specific Query

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:03:01 -0400

Question

I have a query that runs every few seconds on a Microsoft SQL Azure Database. It is from a web job that checks if there are actions that need to be done based on rows in a specific table (its a queueing table). Based on the image attached, does anyone have any suggestion of how i could reduce the DTU usage for the query in question, it is causing the database to reach 100% CPU.

Webinar: Azure SQL DB Managed Instance--A New Path to the Cloud

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 10:00:44 -0400

On October 2, 2018 at 11PM EDT, I’ll be joined by John Q. Martin (blog|twitter) for a webinar on Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.

~~To sign up, register here.~~

You can access the recording of the session here.

Follow-up Q & A from the live session can be found here.

What the heck is a DTU?

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 09:42:18 -0400

No, seriously. What is a DTU?

When you’re deploying any application, one of the first questions that comes up is “What will this cost?” Most of us have gone through this sort of exercise for sizing a SQL Server installation at some point, but what if you’re deploying to the cloud? With Azure IaaS deployments, not much has changed–you’re still building a server based on CPU count, some amount of memory, and configuring storage to give you enough IOPS for your workload. However, when you make the jump to PaaS, Azure SQL Database is sized with different service tiers, where performance is measured in DTUs. What the heck is a DTU?

Building a Twitter-bot RSS Aggregator

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 23:13:34 -0500

I hate RSS readers

I love my new bot

For some reason, about once a year, I go hunting for a new RSS reader so I can keep track of blogs that I like to read. It’s always the same process:

Dig through reviews to find an app that I think I will love.
Come up with a list of blogs that I like to read.
Install and configure RSS reader app.
Spend the night reading blog posts.
Use app for a week.
Never open RSS reader app again.

Well, it's time to stop the insanity. Its time to stop doing the same thing over and over again, hoping it will work this time. Its time to find a solution that really works.

Before I can find something that works, I need to think about

Cannot restore azure database to local due to missing master key

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 09:26:09 -0500

Question

I create a bacpac from azure and restore to my local on-prem server. However, it throws an error like “Please create a master key in the database or open the master key in the session before performing this operation”. The reason is one of the column in the table is encrypted. I don’t know how to restore the database from azure with master key and certificate etc. Do you know what I could do?

TSQL Tuesday #85: Backup + Recovery + ☁️

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:11:48 -0500

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Kenneth Fisher (blog| twitter). The topic: Backup & Recovery

## Your backups are my bread & butter Backup & recovery are a DBA's bread & butter. I always tell people that if you can't restore from backup in an emergency, you should at least make sure your resume is up to date--you'll need it. Part of my approach to making sure I have foolproof backups is making sure my setup is scripted and fool-proof to configure. Traditionally, this has been as simple as some T-SQL scripts that create the backup stored procedure, and create a few SQL Agent jobs.

The SQL Agent jobs would write to the NAS, use the company standard retention, and everything was set. No muss, no fuss.