Posts by agoddard
How Can I Create a Table of Contents in Excel to Easily Navigate Workbooks with Many Tabs?
Have you ever opened an Excel workbook and been surprised by the number of sheets it contains? Perhaps you are looking for something, or don’t know where to begin? This article shares a great trick in Excel if you need to see at-a-glance what all the tabs are in a workbook. You can build your…
Read MoreWhat Is Azure Query Performance Insight and How Can It Help Me Analyze and Optimize Database Queries?
Query Performance Insight proposes to provide “intelligent” query analysis for single and pooled (databases in a pool are on a single server and share a set number of resources ) databases. It identifies those queries that consume the most resources as well as the longer-running queries. This helps find which queries to optimize to improve…
Read MoreWhat Is Azure Data Factory and How Do I Use It to Build and Run Simple ETL Pipelines in Azure?
Since I’ve worked with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) off and on for a while, I have been anxious to explore Azure Data Factory (or ADF) to see what the differences are and how it stacks up. While SSIS may be a familiar ETL tool for on-premises work, Azure Data Factory (defined as a “platform…
Read MoreGather data from an API using the Script source node
The following article outlines how Euclid Studio can be used to request data from an API and process it so it can be used in the system. This requires some knowledge of Python coding that is used within the Script source node and how APIs function. APIs usually have associated documentation that describes how to…
Read MoreHow Can I Create and Use Custom Shape Maps in Power BI Desktop to Visualize Regional Data?
The objective of this exercise is to explore the use of Microsoft Power BI Desktop (version 2.98.1) to create a map visualization, so, let’s start by answering the question: what is a map visualization? Map visualizations are used to analyze and display geographically related data and present it in the form of a map. This…
Read MoreUsing Azure Data Studio Notebooks to investigate variable correlations
The objective of this exercise is to demonstrate creating an Azure Data Studio (ADS) Notebook using Python to query SQL Server and investigate correlations between variables. Variable correlation can be key to increasing the accuracy of a forecast or predicting potential outcome scenarios. What is an Azure Data Studio Notebook? Azure Notebooks is a Microsoft…
Read MoreHow Do I Use Symmetric Encryption in SQL Server to Encrypt and Decrypt Data?
There is a very helpful article describing how to encrypt a column of data in a relational database by using symmetric encryption (sometimes known as column-level encryption, or cell-level encryption) using Transact-SQL found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/encryption/encrypt-a-column-of-data?view=sql-server-ver15. After reading the article, I felt like working-through the provided examples myself in order to dig a bit deeper into…
Read MoreHow Do I Use SQL Server’s Always Encrypted Feature to Protect Sensitive Data?
In an earlier post I spent some time exploring symmetric encryption in SQL Server. In this article I wanted to address another kind of security offered in SQL Server: “Always Encrypted”. Always Encrypted is a security feature which was introduced in an earlier version of SQL Server and is designed to ensure that data stored…
Read MoreHow Do I Use Azure Key Vault to Secure SQL Server Encryption Keys and Protect My Data?
I started a “few posts ago” exploring the topic of SQL Server encryption, beginning with Symmetric Encryption and then looking at the “Always Encrypted” feature. In the second post, I configured Always Encrypted on a column in a SQL table and stored the encryption key in the Windows certificate store on the client machine. In…
Read MoreProvisioning a Windows VM in Azure
A Virtual Machine or “VM” is a computing resource that uses software instead of hardware to run programs and deploy apps. Azure virtual machines enable you to swiftly create dedicated computing resources that can be used just like any physical desktop or server. Choose Your Method Azure virtual machines (VMs) can be created through the Azure portal…
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