• Azure - Microsoft - Oracle

    Oracle and the Future

    January 6, 2020 - By 

    We’ll start with a disclaimer here- this is my experience and my opinion. NO ONE ELSE’S, just as any link to any blog in this post is. Take it or leave it, I really don’t care, never have, never will- never been one to follow any drummer but my own anyway. 😊 Although the basis for calculating database management systems percentage of business is highly contested, there isn’t anyone contesting Oracle as having the largest percentage of the current database management system business. Don’t confuse this with cloud business or other technology platform-  those are two different things.  One such…

  • Microsoft

    The 2019 Year in Review

    December 31, 2019 - By 

    It’s that time of year where everyone is doing a “Year in Review” post and why not? It’s good to gain perspective, plan for 2020 and celebrate all that was wonderful about 2019, (outside of politics, that was an utter failure on all fronts, pretty much most countries… :)) The DBAKevlar blog: 46 published posts for 2019 Over 800 posts on the site Over 600K in visitors for 2019 Daily views have increased steadily, with over 2500 visitors yesterday. Somehow, still awarded top 60 blog sites for Oracle database blogs with all that Microsoft content…:) Microsoft Employment for 2019: My…

  • Azure - EM13c - Enterprise Manager - Microsoft - Oracle

    Tools To Monitor and Work with Oracle on Azure

    December 26, 2019 - By 

    I’ve been studying for over a week for my certs.  It really is a challenge for my ADHD brain, as I learn by interacting and using a product, not be reading about it and guess what?  Most of what the certs are on are not in my technical area.  Yeah, this is not fun for me.  I find that my brain hits a limit on what it can absorb before the activity levels in the temporal lobes diminish and I need to take a break, which is what I’m doing right now after a full day of Azure Synapse Analytics,…

  • Microsoft - SQLServer

    Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2019 on Linux, Part II

    December 12, 2019 - By 

    This is a 2-part blog post, the first in the series can be found on the Microsoft SQL Server blog here. The recently released SQL Server 2019 on Linux includes several updated features, including replication, support for Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator, and Change Data Capture (CDC) support. If you’re running SQL Server 2017 on Linux, these are great reasons to upgrade to SQL Server 2019 to take advantage of these updates. Microsoft SQL Server 2019 was subjected to significant testing and supported to run on several Linux distribution platforms: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), and…

  • Azure - Microsoft - Power BI - Power BI Desktop

    Securing Data in Power BI- an Interactive Diagram

    December 5, 2019 - By 

    I haven’t been very good at sharing my analytics work as often I feel others are more skilled in this area than I am, just starting out, but today I’d like to start to fix that by sharing an interactive diagram.  I know, some of you may be saying, “infographic”, but as it’s has links vs. a paginated design, I’ll call it as I see it. Not the Kitchen Sink This diagram I built for a customer who was interested in how data was secured at different stages of the Power BI environment and was built with their specific Power…

  • Linux - Microsoft - SQLServer

    Failed Installation of MSSQL-CLI on Ubuntu

    November 26, 2019 - By 

    So you want to run mssql-cli on Ubuntu Linux, but you received a number of errors and even if you got through some errors, you’re still stuck? I’m here to try to help you get through them and hopefully I’ve captured them all.  Trust me, the Oracle DBAs have been here-  our databases and tools failed for a very long time until Linux administrators came to know what we needed and started to build us the images with the correct libraries and versions we needed, so we feel your pain! The easiest scenario for many to deploy SQL Server 2019…

  • Microsoft

    PASS Summit 2nd Day Keynote

    November 7, 2019 - By 

    Woohoo, we’ve made it to the second day of PASS Summit!  After an awesome first day running from the keynote, to my first session with Denise McInerney, late for my executive meeting with less than a dozen other attendees with Rohan Kumar and sessions/networking/parties, here we are for the second day of PASS Summit keynote! Info and Awards We started the day with Wendy Pastrick to tell us about the financial status of PASS and she decided to make sure we were awake and serenade us with a lovely song first! Tim Ford was next to talk about what the…

  • Microsoft

    Bacon, Bloggin’ and First Day Keynote at PASS Summit 2019!

    November 6, 2019 - By 

    After a flurry of release announcements at MSIgnite this week, it was time to talk about the technology at a deeper level at PASS Summit.  I love this event, which has my undying loyalty due to the sheer amount of technical focus on everything in the Microsoft data platform and of course, was not disappointed with the first day keynote on Wednesday! We started out with a great treat of information before the keynote, just so we were prepared for what was to come in the next couple days…plus bacon! Grant Says Grant Fritchey started the keynote by welcoming all…

  • Microsoft - Power BI

    My PASS Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 6th Recommendations from DBAKevlar!

    November 5, 2019 - By 

    I thought I would share the recommendations for the next day that I’m excited about this year at PASS Summit 2019!  There are some really great sessions and as most attendees, I’ve focused the list on topics that I’m interested in or can help me in my role. Although Tuesday afternoon and evening may kill me with how many events are all planned, there’s still a lot going on for the rest of the week! Wednesday starts with my session with Denise McInerney, on Becoming a Technical Leader, so I don’t get to attend first, but will be presenting.  This…

  • Azure - DBA Life - Linux - Microsoft

    PASS Summit 2019 is NEXT WEEK!

    October 31, 2019 - By 

    I’m getting ready for SQL Saturday Oregon this weekend, (taking the train up from Eugene to Portland…) but its about time I talked about the exhilarating and exhausting event we call PASS Summit. This year I was lucky enough to be chosen as a speaker and a blogger.  Bloggers at the conference get the opportunity to sit in special zones during keynotes and we write about the event.  We also get special access to Microsoft PMs, (although I may be the only one who works for Microsoft attending vs. running them… :)) I look forward to all of the blogger…

  • Azure - Microsoft - Oracle

    The Complexity Defense and Other DBA Crimes

    October 30, 2019 - By 

    No matter how far my career and role has shifted, I will always view myself as a database administrator.  I know this because when I fill out any form asking me what role I fulfill in IT, I still choose “DBA” from the list.  No matter what claims the media and leading sources state, DBAs are an important role, even as technology shifts and traditional database tasks move to the cloud.  Deeper relational database skills are still quite relevant when working in complex technical scenarios. The Experts Companies work to ensure they hire the right technical specialists.  They don’t understand database…

  • DBA Life - Microsoft - SQL Saturday

    October 2nd, #SQLSatOregon in Portland and the #SQLTrain!

    October 23, 2019 - By 

    I’m still not sure where October went….well, actually I do-  it was a flurry of travel, writing, (but not blogging!) and working with customers on a ton of new projects for the next quarter.  With the end of October, comes the preparation for PASS Summit.  Last year, I had to pass on the SQL Train, but this year? SQL Train is the annual pilgrimage from SQL Saturday Oregon, in Portland, to PASS Summit in Seattle via Amtrak train.  Chris Hyde is the poor, tortured soul responsible for organizing this, but I hear that if you say you’ll volunteer, it’s like…

  • Azure - Azure CLI - Microsoft - Oracle

    Oracle on Azure- Options, Options, Options

    October 15, 2019 - By 

    I’ve been very busy allocating 60% of my time towards Oracle on Azure migrations.  The biggest challenge right now isn’t getting Oracle on Azure, but keeping my percentage of time allocated to only 60%. I love Oracle technology-  yes, a Microsoft employee who LOVES Microsoft and Azure cloud, also LOVES. Oracle.  I won’t apologize and I know I’m not the only one.   Every company I’ve worked for, even when I worked at Oracle, required my multi-platform skill set.  I’ve never worked anywhere that had ONLY Oracle, only Linux, only Microsoft, only SQL Server, etc.  I saw it only as…

  • Microsoft

    #24HOP and PASS Summit 2019

    September 26, 2019 - By 

    You know how busy I am by the amount of time I DON’T blog and yes, it’s been over a month.  I think that’s the longest I haven’t blogged in YEARS. 24 HOP and Facebook Live I just finished my 24HOP, (24 hrs of PASS) session back on September 9th, the PASS Facebook Live session this last Monday and I’m thrilled with these virtual events each year I get the chance to participate. If you’re not familiar with 24HOP, its a preview of some of the sessions at Summit, the annual tech conference from PASS.  Twenty four presenters are chosen…

  • Azure - Microsoft - Oracle

    Azure VMs with Oracle- Next Steps

    August 13, 2019 - By 

    Microsoft has done a great job of documenting how to create a VM with the appropriate VM image and Oracle version, then how to log in, startup the listener and create the database.  I just have some enhancements I’d like to make to it, hoping to help it move up one level. I Bequeath to You All instructions provided by the Microsoft documentation show how to connect to the database using a bequeath, (BEQ) connection.  This is done by the following command, using SQL Plus, (or similar): sqlplus / as sysdba It bypasses the need for a connection string, only…

  • Azure - Linux - Microsoft

    Linux Scripting, Part IV- Scripting for Longevity

    July 31, 2019 - By 

    We’ve learned a lot about commands, utilities and how to create a script, but we need to discuss the importance of scripting for longevity. What is Scripting for Longevity?  We have a tendency to focus on scripting to automate something WE might not want to perform manually, but avoid what we think might void our value.  We may try to ensure there is necessity for our role or our knowledge as we create scripts.  This can be built into the execution process, scheduling, arguments, pre-run or post-run steps.  This doesn’t make us an asset, but a liability and against what…

  • Azure - Microsoft - Oracle

    Create an Oracle VM on Azure in Less than 5 Minutes

    July 17, 2019 - By 

    If there’s one thing I’ve been able to prove this week, it’s that even with the sweet 4G LTE, Wi-Fi setup in my RV, Montana still has the worst Wi-Fi coverage in the US.  Lucky for me, I work in the cloud and automate everything, because if there’s one thing I love about automating with scripts, is that I can build out a deployment faster and less resource intensive than anyone can from the portal. Oracle Virtual Machines in Azure When you build out an Azure VM, with Oracle, you’ll also need to have the supporting structure and a sufficiently…

  • Azure - Microsoft - Oracle

    Best Practices for Oracle Data Guard on Azure

    July 15, 2019 - By 

    I keep saying I’m going to start sharing what I’m doing in the Analytics space soon, but heck, there’s too much I need to keep adding to on the Oracle in Azure arena! So, as most people know, I’m not a big fan of Oracle RAC, (Real Application Cluster).  My opinion was that it was often sold for use cases that it doesn’t serve, (such as HA) and the resource demands between the nodes, as well as what happens when a node is evicted to those that are left are not in the best interest for most use cases.  On…