GitHub announces free private repositories

GitHub has made two announcements to start the new year off.

• Unlimited free private repositories for up to three collaborators per repository
• GitHub Enterprise is the new unified product for Enterprise Cloud (formerly GitHub Business Cloud) and Enterprise Server (formerly GitHub Enterprise).

SQLSaturday Cambridge 2018 - Britannia Edition!

I attended PASS SQL Saturday Cambridge 8 September 2018. This was held at The Møller Centre, Churchill College, Storey's Way, Cambridge. Another great training day packed full of lots of new and exciting data technology.

I attended some amazing sessions. These were

• Data Classification in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database - Mark Pryce-Maher
• Azure Cosmos DB - What you need to know to build globally distrib - Satya SK Jayanty
• Using AI to write session submission to SQLSaturday - Terry McCann
• Power BI server and Office Online server, modernize your on-premises BI approach. - Isabelle Van Campenhoudt
• Bricking it: An Introduction to Azure Databricks - Simon Whiteley 
• SQLOpsStudio Vs SSMS - There can be only one - Warwick Rudd
• Branding Yourself for a Dream Job - Steve Jones

There was some very interesting learning, that I took away, which I will write about in a follow up blog.

2018 MVP Reactions

Peter Laker published an article about reactions from the 2018's NEWEST Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award winners. What a great set of reactions from some amazing people.

Privileged to have my comment listed on the reactions list.

Microsoft MVP Award

I received my first Data Platform MVP award yesterday. What an honour it is to be a part of an amazing community. I am humbled by the enormity of the award and it is a privilege to be able to share my passion for data. I am listed here.

Microsoft for the Modern Data Estate

The Microsoft Ignite session on the modern data estate was full of announcements. All around us, data is driving digital transformation. Modernize with SQL Server 2017 on Linux and Windows and Azure Data Services; deliver modern intelligent applications using technologies like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

The world is changing.  We need to help invest in the future without being tied to the past. AI is a fundamental pillar to leverage that. If businesses invests in data they outperform other companies. 

Data doesn’t need to leave the database for data science to take place.

The cloud first approach breeds faster innovation and SQL Server 2017 is proof of that.

Announcements

SQL Server 2017 on Linux, Docker , and Windows server

Supports for graph data and queries

Advances Machine Learning with R & Python

Native T-SQL scoring

Adaptive Query processing and Automatic Plan Correction

Vulnerability assessment for GDPR - preview

Intelligent insights into performance – preview

Support for Graph data and queries –GA

Adaptive query processing – GA

Native scoring and support for Azure Machine Learning - GA

SQL Database and Database Migration Service

Migration to the cloud is easy with this new service. 

Azure SQL Database is the intelligent cloud database for app developers. It learns and adapts, scales on the fly, enables multi-tenant SaaS apps, works in your environment, secures and protects. The systems of intelligence on SQL Database is shared.

Globally Distributed Applications

Announcing Azure functions for Azure Cosmos DB to build apps faster with a serverless infrastructure. 

Uncovering insights with big data and advanced analytics

The new Azure Data Factory allows easy modelling of diverse data integration scenarios. You can now with the preview service, easily move your SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) workloads to cloud. There is also a data movements as a service with 30+ connectors. Azure SQL Data Warehouse has a compute- optimized tier and unlimited columnar storage in preview. The last announcement was the Power BI Report Server.

Microsoft Ignite Vision Keynote

The 3 key technologies that will fundamentally transform our industry are mixed reality, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. 

There is a new computing paradigm on how to support and transform apps that we build, that is AI first. This is changing the culture inside organizations. Microsoft are joining graphs to produce systems of intelligence for sales, field service, customer service, talent and operations. To be one pervasive graph that is extensible. This will change the frontier about simplicity of tasks, unlocking new innovation and creativity, to create the next platform.

The aim is to democratize access to technology and to unlock the unimaginable and solve the impossible, that is the quest we are on.

Journey to the cloud

I have been reading a very interesting free ebook Enterprise Cloud Strategy by Barry Briggs and Eduardo Kassner. 

There are various types of modernisation discussed. 

It is based on Based on “Gartner Identifies Five Ways to Migrate Applications to the Cloud”, Gartner Inc., 2011. 

The overview of cloud migration principles discussed are summarised:

There is new a model that truly adopts cloud taking into account SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. This new architecture principle means considering the best placement of workloads, always looking at SaaS first.

This new way of thinking follows this placement decision tree which helps you make the correct decision on whether to use SaaS, PaaS, IaaS or private cloud.

On the data side, the paper talks about dividing your data into several categories related to risk. This is really about creating your own business data DNA. 'Data analytics' and 'BI and analytics'  cloud architectural blueprints are shared.

An interesting change for roles is the evolution of roles for the cloud. Microsoft suggest the data roles of Data Scientist and Information Architect emerge from the DBA and Statistician.

Interesting blog posts of the last month

These are a few blog posts I read last month which i found quiet interesting.

Azure SQL 

SQL Database Fundamentals

Introducing Batch Mode Adaptive Joins

Calculate your savings with SQL Server 2016

Auto Generate Your Database Documentation

Resource Manager template reference now available

DEA 2.0 Technical preview: Release Overview – Database Experimentation Assistant: Overview

Azure Data Warehouse: Understanding the DWU, workload management, resource and memory allocation

Top 30 SQL Blogs  Websites for Microsoft SQL Server Administrators

Get ready for SQL Server 2017

Microsoft touts SQL Server 2017 as the first RDBMS with built-in AI

NoSQL

AWS Database Migration Service expands into NoSQL migrations with MongoDB & Amazon DynamoDB support

DocumentDB

DocumentDB NoSQL database security

Visualization

How Microsoft uses Power BI to run its growing cloud business

Getting started with R in SQL Server

Configuring R on SQL Server 2016 

Monitor R Services using Custom Reports in Management Studio

Deep Learning

Microsoft Updates its Deep Learning Toolkit  

Graph

Let’s Talk Graph!

The R Graph Gallery's Top 5 Most Visited Graph Themes

GraphConnect Europe! London here I come

Build a recommendation system with the support for graph data in SQL Server 2017 and Azure SQL DB

Data

Dark Data: The hidden billion dollar opportunity

The Data Readiness Strategies of AI start-ups

Book

The Data and Analytics Playbook: Proven Methods for Governed Data and Analytic Quality 1st Edition

Database Research and Data's Journey

The first TechNet UK blog post was entitled Management of Database Systems Research and was a précis of the database research I am undertaking. A comic strip was included telling the story of Data and the path that lead to starting the database research.  

My research journey has progressed and my new blog post crosses the boundary between academia and the industrial world of database systems. Data reprises his role taking the reader through the research journey and methods used.