Inside the Walls of Azure SQL MI

Here's a teaser about Azure SQL Managed Instance, which isn't quite PaaS or IaaS, but isn't as locked down as you might think. This is the introduction to a three part series to follow.

Getting In: Running External Code in a Locked-Down PaaS

In Part 1, I explored how to bend SQL Server Agent to our will and peek under the hood of Azure SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI), gaining full OS access to the container (all without relying on xp_cmdshell). But once I realized what kind of door I'd opened, curiosity pushed us further, tempting us to […]

Why Clone Fails: Discovering the Hardware Beneath Azure SQL MI

In this next part of the series on Managed Instance, we see how to discover a bit about the internals of how the instance is being run. Learn how to kill and respawn a Managed Instance.

Takeaways from Data Grillen 2024

Two days of Data, Beer and Bratwurst. What did it bring me, find out by reading this photo-rich article.

Summing a BIT column with a numeric as the outcome

A Version Control Strategy for Branch-based Database Development

The migration to a different VCS should not be underestimated, as there is a lot more involved than just switching tools, and that’s what Tonie Huizer covers in this article.
First, the team needed to migrate the monolithic repos over to Git, second the team needed to make sure we had a branching strategy and workflow in place.
It involved a big process change for the team as well, but this switch is mandatory to make full use of branch-based database development.

A week in Seattle in 8 Slides at the PASS Data community Summit 2022

A look back at the PASS Data Community Summit in 8 slides from Tonie Huizer.

DIY Database Clones

This article explores the 'shadow copy' and 'disk virtualization' services built into the Windows operating system and explains a basic solution demonstrating how the technology is used to copy the data and log files for a live SQL Server database into an 'image', from which we can create multiple, lightweight copies, or clones, of the original database.