SQL Updates Newsletter - June 2016
Recent Releases and Announcements
- SQL Server 2016 became generally available starting June 1st, 2016.
- Announcing SQL Server 2014 SP2
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/announcing-sql-server-2014-sp2/
- SQL Server 2014 SP2 will be released next month and a release announcement with detailed information on improvements will be shared at the time of the release.
- Last Cumulative Update #14 for SQL Server 2014 RTM
- Cumulative Update #7 for SQL Server 2014 SP1
- Announcing SQL Server Management Studio – June 2016 Release
- SQL PowerShell: July 2016 update
- The July update for SSMS includes the first substantial improvement in SQL PowerShell in many years.
- This month we introduce CMDLETs for the following areas: Always Encrypted, SQL Agent, SQL Error Logs
- The SQL PowerShell module that ships with SSMS has changed from SQLPS to SqlServer (there is no change to the module used by SQL Agent). This means that if you have a PowerShell script doing Import-Module SQLPS, it will need to be changed to be Import-Module SqlServer in order to take advantage of the new provider functionality and new CMDLETs.
- The motivation for these changes is that the tooling components are being moved to be “application local” and not share any components with the SQL Server engine. This is an important step to enable monthly tooling updates while not negatively impacting the components setup and updated by the SQL Server setup program.
- The new version of SQL Server PowerShell included with SSMS does not update the version of PowerShell used by SQL Server. This means that scripts executed by SQL Agent will not be able to use the new CMDLETs. Updates to SQLPS (the version used by SQL Agent) will be done through the traditional SQL Server update mechanisms
- Some of the new cmdlets: Get-SqlAgentJob, Get-SqlErrorLog, Set-SqlErrorLog
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/30/sql-powershell-july-2016-update/
- Released: Microsoft Azure SQL Database Management Pack (v1.6.1.0) for System Center 2012
- SQL Server Data Tools July Update
- SQL Server 2008 SP4 and SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 now available in Microsoft Update Catalog
- Released: System Center Management Pack for SQL Server, Replication, AS, RS, Dashboards (6.7.2.0)
- WideWorldImporters: The new SQL Server sample database
- WideWorldImporters is the main database for transaction processing [and] operational analytics
- WideWorldImportersDW is the main database for data warehousing and analytics
- A SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package, Daily ETL.ispac, is used to move data from the OLTP database WideWorldImporters to the OLAP database WideWorldImportersDW
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/09/wideworldimporters-the-new-sql-server-sample-database/
- SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition image is available in the Azure Gallery
- A tour through tool improvements in SQL Server 2016
- Monthly releases of new SQL tools make it easy to stay current with new features and fixes.
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/05/03/a-tour-through-tool-improvements-in-sql-server-2016/
- Microsoft announces major commitment to Apache Spark
- Spark for Azure HDInsight General Availability - fully managed Spark service from Hortonworks that is enterprise ready and easy to use
- R Server for HDInsight in the cloud powered by Spark, in preview today and will be generally available later this summer makes Spark integration easy no matter if you are working on premises or in the cloud.
- R Server for Hadoop on-premises now powered by Spark, as the leading solution in the world to run R at scale, R Server for Hadoop now supports both Microsoft R and native Spark execution frameworks made available this week.
- Free R Client for Data Scientists, a new free tool for data scientists to build high performance analytics using R.
- Power BI support for Spark Streaming, General Availability, Spark support in Power BI now allows you to publish real-time events from Spark Streaming.
- Additionally, […] MongoDB announced MongoDB Atlas, a new elastic on-demand cloud service that will provide comprehensive infrastructure and management for its popular database. MongoDB Atlas will become available for Azure customers via a strategic partnership between the two companies.
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/30/celebrating-with-hadoop-and-red-hat-communities/
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/06/microsoft-announces-major-commitment-to-apache-spark/
- Microsoft Connectors 4.0 for Oracle and Teradata is now available for SSIS 2016!
Recent Whitepapers/E-books/Training/Tutorials
- Design and Implement Big Data & Advanced Analytics Solutions
- Elastic Database Capabilities with Azure SQL DB
- PowerShell for SQL Data Professionals
- Check out the SQL Server sessions we’ve planned for Microsoft Ignite
- Get a head start on SQL Server 2016 with this how-to guide
Monthly Script Tips
- Resource Manager Powershell Script to Enable SQL Server Managed Backup to Azure
- [Sample Of Jun. 30] How to clear out the diagnostics logs within a specified timeframe in Azure
- [Script Of Jun. 29] How to find code comments in source code using Regular Expressions
- Using PowerShell script make any application highly available
Issue Alert
- Critical: issue in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 that could crash your SQL server
- Critical : Do NOT delete files from the Windows Installer folder. C:\windows\Installer is not a temporary folder and files in it should not be deleted. If you do it on machines on which you have SQL Server installed you may have to rebuild the operating system and reinstall SQL Server.
- Important: You must precede all Unicode strings with a prefix N when you deal with Unicode string constants in SQL Server
- PolyBase Setup Errors and Possible Solution
- AlwaysOn – R2 and R3 Kernel Fixes – Handle SQL Server AlwaysOn AG failovers more transparently and gracefully
Fany Carolina Vargas | SQL Dedicated Premier Field Engineer | Microsoft Services