Adding Analysis Services (SSAS) to your SQL Server instance–#SQLNewBlogger

Posted on May 13, 2020 by way0utwest

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

This is a fairly simple task, but recently I needed to test something in SSAS. I hadn’t installed this on my machine, so I had to add it. It’s simple, but worth a quick post.

The way to add SSAS (Analysis Services) to your instance is to run the setup program for SQL Server. When you do this, pick the Installation tab from the left menu.

2020-04-30 11_08_06-SQL Server Installation Center

From here, I want the first item (New SQL Server stand-along installation or add features to an existing installation). SSAS is a new feature.

When this starts moving, be sure you stop on the Installation Type screen and move the radio button to the “Add features” item.

2020-04-30 11_08_42-SQL Server 2019 Setup

The next screen is where you will check the Analysis Services box.

2020-04-30 11_09_26-SQL Server 2019 Setup

You will then get an SSAS config screen. In my case, I was testing something with the Tabular model. If you don’t know which to choose, you need to research this. Here are a couple links:

You also need an account here. I typically add my local account here for dev machines.

Don’t forget to reset the data directory if you need to do this.

2020-04-30 11_09_53-SQL Server 2019 Setup

That’s it. Let the setup run and you’ll have SSAS installed.

2020-04-30 11_12_38-SQL Server 2019 Setup

How do you check? That’s another post.

SQLNewBlogger

This is a really simple task, but it’s something that you should be familiar with. I needed to do this, and just documented my task, this one simple thing.

This can drive interviewers to ask about how I did this, why, what I tested, etc. This helps control the interview and the direction in which someone might query your knowledge.

As you do small tasks, write about the specific task. If you want to cover what you did after this task, write a second post.

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Smarter Design

Posted on May 13, 2020 by way0utwest

I have build a lot of PowerPoint decks over the years. Many of presentations, some for explaining a process, and once in awhile, I use it to create an image that’s simple, but beyond my skills. Even putting some geometric shapes together in a clean, aligned manner, is something I’ve found easier to do in PowerPoint than Paint.Net.

Some of you may have noticed the PowerPoint Design Ideas that pop up when you create a new slide. At first I didn’t pay much attention, but I’ve started to take advantage of the ideas at times. The way that slides are put together is often much more visually appealing than any I’d think of by myself. Sometimes I take an idea and modify it slightly. At first I thought most of these were just standard templates, but Microsoft is starting to use more ML in the examples that pop up on the side.

There’s a good AI Show episode at the bottom of this post that explains some of what they do. From image recognition to intelligent cropping to natural language processing, they are finding ways to make better design ideas available. the episode is only minutes and worth watching if you want to know more about how they use technology in their recommendations.

To me, this is a good example of how technology and humans work together. Someone needs to come up with some good designs, based on certain situations. Users then provide them feedback on if they’re useful or not, and they can modify things. I even learned how to change the icons for the designs if I don’t quite like them. My changes (and yours) get fed back to new models as training for the future.

Would this make all presentations look alike? I think there is some danger here that we start to coalesce into certain patterns. We might see lots of slides with dates become timelines, but they won’t be exactly the same, and there are different ideas based on content. Even the words in the titles. I made two slides, same content with a different title and I got slightly different recommendations.

I think AI and ML have good futures, but not as the sole decision makers for how to react to data. Instead, I think humans constantly providing feedback, input into models, changing weights, and yes, helping with more complex things like design, will improve the results that more of us get from our tools.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 13 May 2020

Posted on May 13, 2020 by way0utwest

I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today’s tip is to be grateful for the little things, even in difficult times.

This is one of those things I try to do often. Even when I’m stressed or in a hurry or upset, I have found if I can stop and look at something that has gone well, I can better cope. I might not be happy, but I can reduce some of the difficulty.

The more I interact with people in this pandemic, the more I am thankful for the ranch on which I live. It can feel a bit stifling at times, but I have plenty of space to enjoy the outdoors. This is my view, relaxing on the front porch with a guitar. Most everything you can see is mine.

20200428_194625_HDR

I’m also grateful for my guitar, which I enjoy just strumming (poorly) away on and enjoying some quiet time.

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Defending Against Ransomware

Posted on May 12, 2020 by way0utwest

I don’t manage production systems at Redgate, and I’ve not seen us have any disruption in the access to systems across the last few years. At a number of events, however, I’ve spoken to friends that have told me about the problems they’ve had with ransomware. I’ve been quite surprised how often this happens, as I see headlines, but none of the half dozen or so people I spoke with have worked at any company in the headlines. This is likely a bigger problem than I thought.

I don’t know if you’ve been attacked, but you should be prepared. Denny Cherry has had to deal with this at at least one client, and he wrote a few things down in this article. He doesn’t necessarily recommend you pay, though that’s certainly an option. If you do, you should be prepared for future attacks or other issues. Anyone that wants to hold your data hostage once might be inclined to do it again.

Apart from backups, air gaps, and other preventative measures you might take, including limited access between some workstations and servers, you ought to be sure you can rebuild systems that work in a similar manner to the current ones. Do you know what the specs and settings are for all your systems now? So many people assume they could just go get that information from the system itself, but what if you VMs and VM host are compromised? What if your monitoring system is encrypted? Do you really know all the settings that have been changed from defaults? If your DR plan somewhere outside the network and can you get to it?

This is a good reason why DevOps and infrastructure as code (IaC) are important in a modern organizations. In these cases, a VCS can hold the data you need to rebuild systems. This is a good reason by using GitHub or some remote VCS might be better than self-hosting your code. If you routinely rebuild systems for dev/test, you’ll have some idea of how to deploy, and if you think about IaC as a part of your DR process, you should be able to redeploy on new hardware (or existing hardware that’s wiped clean).

Ransomware is a part of the new world we live in, and we ought to be prepared to defend against it. Ensure you’re ready today, because there will likely be a ransomeware or other types of attack in the future. The more prepared you are with better practice now, the more likely you’ll be ready to adapt to some other security need in the future.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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