PowerShell Desired State Configuration: DSC Resources

Desired State Configuration (DSC) allows you to automate the way that you manage configuration data for software services as well as the environment in which these services run. DSC uses a set of built-in and custom 'resources' as the building blocks for a configuration. If you have specific requirements you may need to create the relevant resource to make the configuration happen. Nicolas Prigent provides a practical guide to DSC resources.

Don't tell the boss

Why would I want the boss to be able to see so easily every little bad thing that happens on my servers? Grant Fritchey offers a few reasons...

The Black Boxes

The world of machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing. Steve Jones notes this means we need to decide if we can trust the black boxes.

Expanding the uses of DBCC CLONEDATABASE

Erin Stellato goes into detail about some practical use cases for a new DBCC command in SQL Server 2014 SP2 : DBCC CLONEDATABASE.

What Helps You Learn?

This Friday Steve Jones looks to find out what things help people learn and build skills more readily.

Querying Multiple MySQL Tables

It’s been said that one of the drawbacks to normalization to the third form (3NF) is more cumbersome data extraction due to the greater number of tables. These require careful linking via JOIN clauses. Improper table joining can easily result in erroneous results or even in the dreaded Cartesian Product. In today’s article, Rob Gravelle explores how table joins are achieved in MySQL.

Capture the Flag

A competition among software bots may foretell a vision of the future for software developers.

Monitor up-time and connectivity with Powershell

Use Powershell to troubleshoot SQL connectivity issues. A way to monitor up-time and connectivity of a SQL server database with some simple Powershell commands.

AT TIME ZONE – a new favourite feature in SQL Server 2016

Rob Farley explains why AT TIME ZONE is his new favourite feature in SQL Server 2016, but also shows that it can make a mess of cardinality estimates.

Byte Me: JavaScripting