Categories
SSIS

Debugging SSIS Packages

When constructing or investigating a SSIS package we can run into a variety of issues. To help resolve there are various techniques which can be used to troubleshoot the package. Whilst we have the Progress tab for the package to tell us what’s happened during execution, it’s usually more effective to debug packages in flight. […]

Categories
Power BI

Solving Certificate Server Name Mismatch for Power BI Data Sources

I recently had an issue when sourcing data in Power BI from a server which was accessed by a DNS alias. Here I’ll demonstrate the issue and how to resolve it. After entering the server details, we could be greeted with the message below: The server name provided does not match the server name on […]

Categories
Azure

Legacy Problems for a Modern Solution: Establishing a Linked Server into Azure

Connecting different versions of SQL Server can allow us to combine or transfer data between environments. This can become a challenge when the versions are really different. Have you tried to connect SQL Server 2008 to a SQL database in Azure? – it can throw up a few curve balls. In this post we’ll look at how […]

Categories
T-SQL Tuesday

T-SQL Tuesday #181 – The Festive Tech Calendar ft. Query Store

Rounding out T-SQL Tuesday for 2024, Kevin’s invitation brings it together with the Festive Tech Calendar (more on that at the end), and asks us to write about a Microsoft Data Platform announcement that could be considered a gift. For context, this post is targeted at developers or engineers who don’t have the time to dig into SQL Server […]

Categories
SSIS

Wrestling with Temp Tables in SSIS Data Sources

When handing data we can make use of temporary tables to aid with separation or performance. However, they don’t always play nice with Integration Services packages. If we set a source to call a procedure returning the contents of a temporary table we’ll see an error like below: The process is unable to determine the […]

Categories
Azure SQL Server

Configuring Database Mail for SQL Agent Notifications in Managed Instance

SQL Agent jobs allow us to schedule and automate tasks on a SQL Server instance. Crucially, when things go wrong we need to know about them. That’s why we use notifications. Setting up Operators and job Notifications is as expected on a Managed Instance. However, when it comes to sending the notifications we may have […]

Categories
SSIS

Solving 2 Common Errors with the Azure Feature Pack

Last week we looked at using the Azure Feature Pack for SSIS to interface with Azure Storage. Today we’re going to solve a couple of the common issues I’ve seen when using this pack. Bad or timed out requests You can set up a connection to the storage and it tests fine, but when you come to […]

Categories
Azure Data Factory

Debugging Failed Function Calls in Data Factory

I recently ran into an issue when trying to call a function from an ADF pipeline. The function returned a generic Internal Server Error with no details exposed. Here we’ll look at how to dig into the logs to identify the true cause of the failure. In this instance the function was performing PGP encryption […]

Categories
SSIS

Deploying SSIS Projects with Custom Components

Within SSIS you can make use of custom components which aren’t present out of the box. An example of some would be the Azure Feature Pack if you’re working with cloud resources. These will let us use features not available natively. They can also provide a challenge down the line when we come to deploy changes to […]

Categories
SQL

Designing Long Running Procedures for Maintainability

Whilst we have front-end code which requires faster response times, there are also times we build code with the purpose of running for extended periods of time. Examples of this could be maintenance routine, or custom built queuing mechanisms. The way in which we design longer running processes like this can be key when it […]