In this post I cover the T-SQL Tuesday #181 roundup of all the posts that were submitted as part of this month’s invitation. Which was the first ever T-SQL Tuesday and Festive Tech calendar crossover.
You can find out more about both T-SQL Tuesday and Festive Tech Calendar in my original invitation. Where I invited others to write about a Microsoft Data Platform announcement that they considered to be as amazing as a present. In other words, something which made you go “wow”.
A massive thanks to all who submitted this month. Hopefully you helped raise awareness for the selected charity for Festive Tech Calendar this year. Which is Beatson Cancer Charity. You can donate through the JustGiving page created by the Festive Tech Calendar team.
There was a distinct theme amongst some of the posts. So, I decided to split the contributions into the below three groups:
- Query Store contributions.
- Other SQL Server related contributions.
- Microsoft Fabric and related innovations contributions.
Query store contributions
We had a few posts about Query Store this month.
Dennes Torres was the first to publish about Query Store. Dennes covers Query Store and its evolution. Highlighting key Query Store features that were introduced into various SQL Server versions over the years.
Plus, Dennes shares the link to the Malta SQL Server 2022 Query Optimization conference that he organized. Which appears to contain some interesting sessions.
Andy Brownsword also covers Query Store and goes into great detail about it in his post that covers the Festive Tech Calendar ft. Query Store.
Andy goes into a lot of detail about some of the specifics of Query Store. I must give Andy some kudos for this because I do like posts that go into a lot of depth.
Next is Hugo Kornelius, a name recognized worldwide as an authority on SQL Server. Especially when it comes to execution plans.
Hugo covers two amazing announcements. One about Query Store and another about new execution plan features. However, in Hugo’s own words the second is more of a moving target than an announcement and gives a bit of a history lesson on some significant updates.
Other SQL Server related contributions
Talking about execution plans, long-term T-SQL Tuesday contributor Rob Farley covers the time Microsoft gave him a neat Christmas present.
For Rob, this was the ability to see the “number of rows read” by an Index Seek operation in a SQL plan containing the “Actuals”. Because if felt like a Christmas gift that year to him.
Louis Davidson covers the first SQL Server feature which made him go “wow”. Which in his case was Foreign Key constraints.
Louis was not sure exactly when he first got introduced to foreign keys. So I asked my good friend Copilot in Edge when foreign keys were first introduced to SQL Server.
First of all, it said SQL Server 2000. When I asked if it was sure they were not added before SQL Server 2000 it corrected itself with the below response.
You are correct. Foreign keys were actually introduced in SQL Server 6.0, which was released in 1995. This feature has been available in SQL Server for quite some time, allowing for the enforcement of referential integrity between tables.
Thanks for pointing that out! If you have any more questions or need further details, feel free to ask! 😄Anyway, sticking with the SQL Server topic Chad Callihan‘s contribution quite literally had a dark theme. Because Chad covers the dark theme in the SQL Server Management Studio 21 preview.
He talks about the benefits of dark mode. He is right. However, bear in mind that dark mode is great for personal use, not so much on a presentation screen.
To finish off the SQL Server theme Reitse Eskens covers what he considers to be the Data Platform present. Which is Copilot for SQL Server, or to be more precise Microsoft Copilot skills in Azure SQL Database.
Apart from being an advocate of Copilot Reitse has a good eye for detail. As he appears to have noticed that I created the image for this month’s invitation myself which included some delicate airbrushing. Instead of creating it with Generative AI.
Microsoft Fabric and related innovations contributions
Deepthi Goguri is a regular for both T-SQL Tuesday and the Festive Tech Calendar. Including the fantastic video she did a couple of years ago relating to the basics of security in Azure for Azure SQL Database.
Deepthi covers SQL database in Fabric. Deepthi goes into a reasonable amount of detail about SQL database in Fabric. Plus, she shares some fantastic links including a Microsoft Reactor video.
Gethyn Ellis did a great post which contains a Christmas Carol of Data Platform features. Starting with SQL Server Availability groups and ending with SQL database in Fabric.
As well as the original content Gethyn also includes an image which makes his post stands out. Which appears to be created by Generative AI.
I really like this image because it is relevant for the post instead of being some random technology image. Which I think is a great example for others to follow when looking to create images for posts with Generative AI.
Steve Jones published a post about a technology present which is Microsoft Fabric related.
Steve states that to him, getting a Power BI project file that works with version control is a great present and I fully agree with him. Because it introduces some fantastic possibilities.
Finally, I cover why I believe in the premise of Microsoft Fabric and why it made me go “wow”. I suspect those of you who read my previous posts over the last eighteen months or so probably realized that already.
However, it also provided me with a good reason to share my vantastic photo. Which might look familiar to those who attended last weeks Fabric Friday livestream about DevOps.
Final words about this T-SQL Tuesday #181 roundup
I hope this T-SQL Tuesday #181 roundup has been both informative and entertaining.
Because this was the first ever T-SQL Tuesday and Festive Tech Calendar and I wanted it to count. A big thanks to Gregor Suttie, Richard Hooper and Steve Jones for allowing me to do this.
Just a reminder that you can donate to this years chosen charity by the Festive Tech Calendar team through the JustGiving page that the team created. Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.
Finally, for those who celebrate it like I do have a vantastic Christmas.
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