How can I get old SQL Server CUs?

By Airborne Geek on October 17, 2017

When one maintains SQL Servers/Instances for a living, one of the things we do on a semi-regular basis (or at least should) is install major updates to said instances. But, because usually we aren’t in a position to mash the latest and greatest one out to everything we support, where to find the specific update we’re looking for isn’t immediately obvious. This is because on all of the existing–say–Cumulative Updates pages, all of the download links to a generic “latest CU” page, where that’s all you can get.

But what if I need an older one?

Behold! Via the Microsoft Update Catalog, all updates that have been released for SQL Server, [almost] ever: www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=SQL%20Server

From this site, you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for and pull it down. Easy peasy. Use the search box at the top to get a little more focused, keeping in mind that “Service Pack” and “Cumulative Update” are spelled out. If you’re looking for a specific update, it’s probably best to use the KB number to search for it (“KB4024305” for SQL 2016 SP1 CU4, for example).

The main page of the site is pretty awesome in a 1997 sort of way (it even looks like it’s from 1997). When you go to www.catalog.update.microsoft.com, basically all you get is a little welcome message, some feedback and a FAQ link, and a search box. That’s it. It’s great.

This isn’t just for SQL Server, either. Theoretically all updates for all mostly-recent MS products are available–for example, Windows XP SP3 is available for download, were you to need that. If you do, we need to have a talk. It also looks like you can’t get SQL 2000 SPs anymore, but all of SQL Server 2005’s are.

Anyway, this is a good Site/URL to keep handy, especially for times like when you’re just about to download SQL 2016 SP1 CU4, and “ah crap, CU5 just got released an hour ago and all of the download links changed.”

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Seattle for Summit 5×5: No. 2

By Airborne Geek on October 13, 2017

This was on the waiter’s station at Bush Garden in 2011

For installment #2 of this brief series on visiting Seattle for PASS Summit, we have a semi-touristy-flavored list of things to do/places to go. These are items that can (or should) be worked into your “normal” conference schedule, without needing to have extra time in town, a car, or such. This list doesn’t include the Pike Place Market, because that’s kind of a gimme, and you’re probably going to do that, anyway. These are other items that are either unofficial parts of the Summit experience itself, or other places that we like to visit for various reasons.

Things to Do: Semi-Touristy

Bush Garden

www.bushgarden.net/
614 Maynard Ave S
You’ve heard of “SQL Karaoke”, right? Up to, and including the party that we (DCAC) have thrown on Tuesday evening for a few years now. But before there was that, there was Bush Garden.

Bush Garden, you see, is this little place that’s cheap Asian food place by day, karaoke bar by night. I’m not sure who found it first, but it has been a near-nightly place to go during Summit for good number of years now. There’s been Jägermeister incidents, bad singing, good singing, my wife doing dishes one time, and then there’s the green couch.

This will be the second year that “the building has been closed, so Bush Garden could go away at any moment” rumors have been present, so as long as they’re still open now–which I believe they are–you gotta go at least one night this year, because this may be it.

World Spice Merchants

www.worldspice.com/
1509 Western Ave
Tucked behind the Pike Place Market towards the sound, this is a favorite place of us to visit. World Spice Merchants is exactly what it sounds like–a place to buy spices. Also having teas, the walls of this place are lined with little glass jars with raw/bulk spices in them that you peruse, taking notes on what you want and how much of it on waiter pads. At the end, you hand your list over to the staff, and they pack everything up for you. Take it with you, or they will ship it home for you. They’ve got lots of stuff that may be otherwise hard to find (especially for us), so if you’re into cooking, don’t skip making a trip down here.

Wines of Washington Tasting Room

www.winesofwashington.com
1924 Post Alley
If you’re into wine, you know how good PacNW cabs can be, and this is an excellent place to experience them. Set up almost like your friends’ living/dining/family room, with small tables and board games on shelves on the wall, this can be a fun place for either hardcore wine tasting (we ran them out of glassware one afternoon) or a cool place to just chill with friends in the evening. You can of course buy bottles here to take [home] with you, and they also have a club.

13 Coins (at 3 AM)

www.13coins.com
125 Boren Ave
So, you see… There aren’t many places open really late in Seattle. Except for 13 Coins. They’re open 24 hours, so no matter what you’re doing (or when), you can count on being able to stop by here for some good eats. Up super-early because your body’s still on Eastern time and it’s 7:00 AM where you “are”? You closed down Bush Garden and now you’re hungry? Here ya go. They have big booths, good food, and can be quite accommodating when a dozen people show up together in the middle of the night for, uh “breakfast.”

Clay’s Market (“The bodega at the convention center”)

815 Pike St
Outside the convention center (but in the building), up the street a little bit from the Crepe place and the Subway, kinda hidden underneath is Clay’s Market. This is a handy (although admittedly a little seedy) very handily-located place to buy the kinds of things you would buy at, well, a bodega. Due to its proximity to the convention center, expect prices to be higher than you may otherwise like.

There’s also another, larger place a few blocks further up Pike that has more items and more reasonable prices. If you don’t mind the walk there or need to buy ten little bottles of orange juice, that may be a better stop.

City Target

1401 2nd Ave
Bonus item!
My wife and I are from rural Indiana, and we still live a little bit out in the country, doing our shopping/such in the classic suburban situation, where there’s more parking lot than there is store. Therefore, when we first went walking around downtown Seattle, we were enamored with the “City Target”, a small-in-area-but-three-levels-high Target store right in the middle of the city. Individual bananas for 25 cents, shopping cart escalators, and a smaller selection of everything you’d expect from a Target. Usually full of locals doing their normal shopping, this can also be an excellent place to pick up some food if you’re tired of eating out at restaurants all the time and have a way to cook it, if you don’t mind the walk down towards the waterfront.

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Seattle for Summit 5×5: No. 1

By Airborne Geek on October 10, 2017

Seattle Coffee Works sign

via max137; Creative Commons

It’s now October (OK, over a week in), and that means for a lot of us SQL Server folks, we have the PASS Summit in Seattle to look forward to at the end of the month. Yes, fine, it tends to fall in November more often.

ANYWAY, a lot of us have gone there for a lot of years, and so we’ve seen a good chunk of downtown and know some good places to eat/such and things to do. So, although Denny’s already done his annual “Summit Firsttimers” webcast, I’m adding some more places/things for newbies and veterans alike. I’ve got five lists of five things coming up over the coming weeks to help you find some good coffee, fun things to do, and where to find all of us crazy people who tend to stay up too late most nights.

Coffee & Quick Bites

There’s a lot of good coffee and good food in Seattle, a lot of which is close to the convention center or otherwise within walking distance. This list of five places–in no particular order–are some of my favorite places to fuel up during the long week of partying learning.

Victrola Coffee Roasters

https://www.victrolacoffee.com/
310 E Pike St
I tend to forget the actual name of this place, so will refer to it as “telegraph” or similar old technology thing when I can’t get it together. This place is up on Capitol Hill up Pike St from the Convention Center and is home to some of the best coffee in town. It’s one of Joey’s favorite places to go, although it is a bit of a hike to get there, plus it can be a total house in the mornings. It’s still worth it, as the coffee truly is great.

Seattle Coffee Works

www.seattlecoffeeworks.com
107 Pike St.
In the opposite direction, down towards the Sound and the market and also on Pike Street is Seattle Coffee Works. As drinking coffee from the same place all week may not be what you’re looking for (also, you’re in Seattle, spread the love), this is another great option.

Cafe Campagne

http://cafecampagne.com/
1600 Post Alley
Do you like Croques Madame? Do you know what a Croque Madame is? If you answered yes to these–or you just looked up what it was and decided you can’t live without one now (good choice)–there’s this awesome little French restaurant/café in Post Alley in the Pike Place Market. Croques, real baguettes, the menu’s mostly/all in French, so yeah. If you’re into this sort of thing, it’s a nice Saturday or Sunday morning before you head out of town stop, but get there early, because this place gets pretty busy pretty fast in the mornings.

La Creperie Voila

http://www.lacreperievoila.com/
It’s in the Convention Center. On the street. Next to the Subway. No, the other Subway.
This is handy for grabbing breakfast on the way in or a mid-afternoon snack. Pretty cheap, pretty good, and location, location, location.

Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room

http://roastery.starbucks.com/
1124 Pike St
Yes, not everyone likes Starbucks, I know. But, a few years ago, Starbucks built this enormous coffee roastery, tasting room, and general temple to the coffee bean. It’s a neat place to go to due to the elaborate coffee conveyor belts that populate the place to feed the roasters. They’ve got some good single-source coffees here and other stuff that you can’t get in regular Sbux stores, and unique mugs & such.

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SQL Server 2017: New Security in Analysis Services Tabular 1400

By Airborne Geek on October 3, 2017

With SQL Server 2017 going GA this week, there’s been a lot of talk last week and this about new and improved features; this post is no different, but, I’m going a slightly different direction.

SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular models were first introduced with SQL Server 2012 (suddenly that seems so long ago) and have undergone continual and sometimes rapid revisions ever since. This remains true with SQL Server 2017, with the introduction of decent list of new features and other improvements.

One of the most exciting for me is the introduction of built-in support for object-level security.

But, We’ve Had Roles and Row Filters the Whole Time!

We have; you’re right. But, one thing that Tabular has never had–or Multidimensional models, either–is a built-in, easy way to do security in the other direction–columns!

Row level security is a very robust feature, and remains great. However, if there are situations where some columns or tables in the model shouldn’t be visible by all users (think Personally Identifiable Information), there wasn’t really a way to handle this before. Hoops would have to be jumped through utilizing DAX and possibly utilizing two different copies/versions of the same table in order to implement this behavior. Sometimes there would even need to be different versions of the same reports, based on which user group they were intended to target (with the underlying security/configuration of the cube driving what the user could or couldn’t see). This was, generally, a pain.

Perspectives are/were never intended as a security feature, and that hasn’t effectively changed with this.

In order to utilize this new feature (and the others), your tabular models will need to be developed/deployed in the 1400 compatibility level. This can be set when creating new models, in addition to being able to upgrade existing models (but this is a one-way street).

Azure Analysis Services

Since AAS is still my favorite thing, I can’t talk about SSAS without plugging it a little bit. Although 1400 compatibility has only been available in the on-prem product for about 24 hours now, it has been available in Preview in AAS since May. This is indicative of Microsoft’s cloud-first strategy–features will be available here first, filtering down to the on-premises software “later.” This may not be for everyone, but I think it’s one of the great reasons to consider Azure’s Platform as a Service offerings (another one is the built-in high availability).

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I’m speaking at SQL Saturday SAN–This Weekend!

By Airborne Geek on September 19, 2017

SQL SaturdayAlthough this year has been pretty busy and I haven’t been speaking a whole lot this year, I’ve got a couple of sessions coming up this weekend at SQL Saturday San Diego!

I’ve got two sessions on the schedule; the first one is an introductory session to SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular modeling, and the second one is a bit of a more advanced (call it Intermediate) session where I discuss and demonstrate managing databases using Database projects in SQL Server Data Tools.

The Tabular presentation is designed for folks who are new to SSAS in general or the tabular flavor of it. I focus mostly on the development process of these apparatus and how to move from raw data to a model that is useful for business users to explore on their own.

In the SSDT session, I discuss some of the advantages of utilizing database projects to help manage your database schema in Visual Studio. This presentation also has a lot of demo time in it, and I help explain how to start from scratch and manage what I feel is the most important part of schema management: deployments.

We (DCAC) are also sponsoring, so if you are in the southern California area this weekend, come on out to SQL Saturday, say Hi, and learn some new SQL Server stuff!

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