Power BI Visuals Gallery

There is now a gallery of visuals created by the Power BI community. You can browse through the visuals or submit one of your own for others to use. https://app.powerbi.com/visuals

SQL Relay 2015

SQL Relay is a SQL Server event which travels round the country.  I was privileged to help with the event at Bristol. The Bristol event was held on 13 October at Future Inns, Bond Street Bristol. There were 4 tracks covering DBA / SQL Engine, Business Intelligence, Analytics and a Workshop track.  

Some videos from the SQL Relay events are available to watch on YouTube.  

DBA Guide to Extended Events - Neil Hambly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYbLoU_U_XU

Making PowerShell useful for your team - Rob Sewell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9AAbwF7DWA

Creating a SQL Server continuous Integration process from scratch in 55 minutes - Ed Elliot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YJQTx3bPek

You want rules? You want Policy-Based Management! - Boris Hristov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqrtatpXoqI

Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Useful links whilst studying for 70-463

Exam Syllabus

Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012– 70-463

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-463.aspx

Skills Measured

Design and implement a data warehouse (11%)

Extract and transform data (23%)

Load data (27%)

Configure and deploy SSIS solutions (24%)

Build data quality solutions (15%)

Exam Prep Videos

MCSA Certification Prep Exam 463 Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012  

Microsoft Virtual Academy 

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/

Implementing a Data Warehouse with SQL Server Jump Start

https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-us/training-courses/implementing-a-data-warehouse-with-sql-server-jump-start-8257

Channel 9 SSIS videos

https://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/ssis

Training Kit Book

Training Kit (Exam 70-463): Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/training-kit-exam-70-463-implementing-a-data-warehouse-9780735666092

Books online for SQL Server 2012

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214%28v=sql.110%29.aspx 

Microsoft's Vision for Data

Microsoft published a video about its vision for data.

How do you find certainty in a world where change is not just inevitable, it’s constant? When you have absolute faith in your data strategy, you can stop focusing on making the business run and start focusing on where you want your business to go.

Data Science

A poster that visualizes the data science process. The high resolution poster is available http://www.icris.nl/

SQL Server 2016 New Features

Query Store

The Query Store feature maintains a history of query execution plans with their performance data. This allows you to quickly identify queries that have become slower recently and use different query plans. 

Polybase

This was introduced into the data warehouse appliance Analytics Platform System in 2015. It is a connector between Hadoop (and Azure Blob Storage) and its data warehouse appliance Analytics Platform System. This functionality is incorporated into the regular on-premises product. 

Stretch Database

The is a hybrid feature to help reduce storage and processing cost and some of your tables will be moved into an Azure SQL Database in the cloud. 

JSON Support

SQL Server 2016 adds support for the lingua franca of Web applications: Java Script Object Notation (JSON).

Row Level Security

This restricts which users can view what data in a table, based on a function which could be useful in multi-tenant environments.

In-Memory Enhancements

This feature will support foreign keys, check and unique constraints and parallelism. Additionally, tables up to 2TB are now supported (up from 256GB).

Alwayson Enhancements

There are some enhancements to Alwayson.