Before discussing why you would want to pin a cluster it would be useful to understand the different states of a cluster. We can have:
Azure Databricks – Pin Cluster
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Azure Databricks to Power BI
A very common approach is to query data straight from Databricks via Power BI. For this you need Databricks token and the JDBC address URL. This is found within Account settings of the cluster.
Azure Databricks – The Notebook
Data engineers, pipe line developers, general data enthusiasts will be spending most of their time within a notebook. Here you develop your code, nice visualisations and commentary boxes are possible too, a very rich web-based interface and is best experienced with google chrome ( in my opinion).
Azure Databricks Overview
I have spent many long weekends getting stuck into Azure Databricks, plenty of time to understand the core functionality from mounting storage, streaming data, knowing the delta lake and how it fits into the bigger picture with tech like Event hubs, Azure SQL DW, Power BI etc.
So, I am going to show you how easy it is to create a cluster (that’s the end goal), you will appreciate the ease of deployment for huge amounts of infrastructure.
Backups for Azure SQL Virtual Machines
When it comes to database backups for IaaS based Azure SQL Servers you have 3 options.
Automating DBCC CHECKDB for Azure SQL DB with Azure Functions
Warning, this is a longer post from me than usual.
The title is a mouthful and so is this post. In the past I have linked to blog posts from Microsoft that say consistency checks for Azure SQL Database is the responsibility of Microsoft. (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/data-integrity-in-azure-sql-database/)
Azure SQL Database for the DBA
Last month I gave a presentation to The PASS Hybrid VG https://hybrid.pass.org/. Now is a good time to become “cloud ready” as a DBA and my presentation gives a nice quick tour of Azure SQL DB.
Abstract for the presentation being ” During this presentation you will get to see the differences in security, high availability, performance, and monitoring of this cloud-first solution. You will also learn about the different service tiers and performance levels that are specific to Azure SQL Database and learn about the different ways that you could migrate to Azure”.
I do cross into many topics such as DBCC CHECKDB , extended events etc, all very useful when wearing your “DBA” hat.
The recording can be found here – https://hybrid.pass.org/Meeting-Details/EventID/15614
Azure SQL Database – Read Only Endpoints
One of the main benefits of configuring active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database is leveraging the read-only endpoint, a good technique to split away read only activity from OLTP based workloads. This means that there is no reason why you cannot point users to these databases via tools such as Power BI as highlighted below.
Azure SQL – Advanced Data Security [video]
A quick 2 minute overview video (from me) about ADS – Advanced Data Security. The unified package from Microsoft providing the ability to discover / classifying sensitive data, mitigate potential database vulnerabilities, and detect anomalous activities. Enjoy.
Azure Database Administrator
Recently I found out that I passed the BETA exam for Azure Database Administrator Associate qualification. I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the exam and if you would like to take the test, how best to prepare. Candidate profile for this exam is as follows:
“Candidates for this exam are database administrators and data management specialists that manage on-premises and cloud relational databases built on top of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure data services.”
