This year, DPS 2022 features eight tracks focusing on Azure Data: 

• Architecture 
• Azure Data Administration 
• Azure Data Development 
• Business Intelligence & Advanced Analytics 
• Data Science (AI/ML)
• Industry Solution 
• SQL Server 2022 
• Professional Development 
• Student Track 

The virtual platform offers a live Q and A session, a networking lounge, and a community zone. Additionally, attendees will receive lifetime on-demand access to session recordings. 

DPS 2022 offers an incredible opportunity to learn directly from our engineering teams, who will share the latest advances and insights on the Azure Data platform. 

• Bob Ward and Buck Woody from the Microsoft Data Platform team will deliver the keynote together. The keynote will highlight the latest innovations across the Microsoft Azure Data platform and share customer case studies. Bob and Buck will show you how to meet the needs of developers across the spectrum to leverage the new tools, processes, and platforms in the Intelligent Data Platform to create a data culture in your organization. Bob will go deep on the newest release in the Intelligent Data Platform—SQL Server 2022. 
• Microsoft Azure Data engineering teams will deliver over 65 sessions at DPS 2022. Hear the latest from the people who develop the tools you use every day and engage in live discussions. 
• Visit the virtual expo hall where you can connect with our team across SQL Server, Azure SQL, Microsoft Learn, Power BI, and more. 

Register now for a week of free training at the Data Platform Virtual Summit and receive all the session recordings also for free (streaming access). 

The post Register today—Free Azure Data training at Data Platform Summit 2022 appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Stay secure and supported on-premises or in Azure

There are four options to keep your SQL Server 2012 secure and supported:

• Migrate to Azure Virtual Machines and run securely with up to three years of free Extended Security Updates and continued access to product support through your existing support contract. Moving SQL Server 2012 to Azure can have the lowest total cost of ownership—as much as 69 percent less than purchasing Extended Security Updates on-premises. It’s also easy to migrate because Azure Virtual Machines run the exact same SQL Server you have in your on-premises environment. In just three weeks, Allscripts lifted and shifted dozens of acquired applications running on 1,000 virtual machines to Azure. The free Extended Security Updates offer extends to other destinations in Azure including Azure Dedicated Host, Azure VMWare Solution, and hybrid destinations such as Azure Stack HCI. Microsoft is also providing one additional year of extended security updates for Windows Server and SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2, only in Azure.
• Modernize your SQL Server in the cloud with Azure SQL Managed Instance, which combines the broadest SQL Server engine compatibility with all the benefits of a fully managed and always up-to-date database service. SQL Managed Instance helps you quickly and confidently modernize your custom and vendor-provided apps to Azure so you can further unlock the benefits of Azure’s integrated service platform. Customers like H&R Block find that SQL Managed Instance helps them scale up or down to meet changing demands in a cost-optimized way.
• Upgrade to SQL Server 2019, which allows you to benefit from industry-leading security and performance, the ability to break down data silos, added business continuity scenarios, and deployment flexibility.
• Sign up for Extended Security Updates for your on-premises SQL Server via Azure Arc. Just like moving to Azure, purchasing Extended Security Updates for use in your on-premises environment gives you continued access to product support through your existing support contract. There are two ways to use Azure Arc to receive Extended Security Updates:
  • Connected: Install the Azure Connected Machine agent with direct connectivity to Azure. You’ll benefit from the features that Azure Arc-enabled servers provide, including ease of enrollment and deployment of Extended Security Updates.
  • Registered: Manually add your instance in a disconnected state and manage all your SQL Server from a single pane of glass. The management experience is consistent with how you manage native Azure Virtual Machines. Learn more about Extended Security Updates for SQL Server.

Plan for upcoming Windows Server 2012/R2 end of support

As you plan to protect SQL Server 2012 workloads, you should also plan to do the same for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 as they reach end of support next year on October 10, 2023. You can continue to protect these workloads by upgrading to Windows Server 2022 or migrating to the cloud.

With Azure, you can focus on modernization, knowing your Windows Server 2012/R2 legacy workloads are seamlessly secured with free Extended Security Updates. Take advantage of unique capabilities for Windows Server in Azure Virtual Machines or hybrid management through Azure Arc. Solutions such as Azure Automanage simplify management of your Windows Server Virtual Machines, while you can accelerate application modernization with PaaS solutions such as Azure App Service and Azure Kubernetes Service.

For customers that need to run business-critical applications on-premises, you can continue to protect your workloads by upgrading to Windows Server 2022 with the latest innovation in security, hybrid capabilities, and application development.

Start your journey with help from Microsoft

Microsoft is here to help you get started. We recently announced an expansion to the Azure Migration and Modernization Program, which has helped thousands of customers unlock the value of the cloud. We’re now investing significantly more to support your largest Windows Server and SQL Server migration and modernization projects, up to 2.5 times more than previous investments, based on project eligibility. This investment will help with your migration in two ways: partner assistance with planning and moving your workloads, and Azure credits that offset transition costs during your move to Azure Virtual Machines, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Azure SQL Database.

Learn more about end of support and migration resources:

• See your options for end of support at the SQL Server 2012 end of support page.
• Learn more about Extended Security Updates for SQL Server from our documentation.
• Sign up for the Azure Migration and Modernization Program to get assistance from Microsoft to accelerate your cloud migration.
• Use the Azure Migrate tool to migrate your SQL Server workloads to Azure.

The post SQL Server 2012 reaches end of support and Microsoft is here to help appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

• Customer feedback
• Retirement of SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters
• Retirement of PolyBase scale-out groups
• Path forward

Customer feedback

We continue to see increased migration to the cloud, with analytical workloads leading that charge.

Customers have indicated that analytics in the cloud best aligns to employee skillsets, deployment simplicity and manageability, and cloud flexibility and scalability.

When we first introduced cloud analytics in 2017, many were still investing in on-premises analytical workloads. Today, we offer a wealth of cloud-based services that provide users with similar functionality, including Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS), Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure SQL, and Azure Machine Learning.

According to the Gartner® 2020 Data and Analytics survey:

• Analytics, BI, and data science are the most common use cases being accelerated to the cloud due to COVID-19. The organization needs faster delivery of analytics insights to take action. Cloud, with its fast provision and prototyping ability, is an ideal place to start analytics and data science initiatives to nimbly react to the fast pace of changes.¹
• In the 2020 Gartner Data and Analytics Cloud survey, 74 percent of organizations use or plan to use cloud for analytics, BI and data science.¹

Retirement of SQL Server Big Data Clusters

Today, we are announcing the retirement of SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters. All existing users of SQL Server 2019 with Software Assurance will be fully supported on the platform for the next three years, through February 28, 2025. This software will continue to be maintained through SQL Server cumulative updates until that time. In the latest version of SQL Server, we are engineering the best mix of on-premises and in-cloud relational workloads and connectivity to Azure Synapse Analytics for advanced analytics in a flexible, scalable, and integrated environment. Please see below and read our documentation on SQL Server Big Data Clusters to learn more.

Changes to PolyBase support in SQL Server

Today, we are announcing the retirement of PolyBase scale-out groups in Microsoft SQL Server. Scale-out group functionality will be removed from the product in SQL Server 2022. In-market SQL Server 2019, 2017, and 2016 will continue to support the functionality to the end of support for those products.

PolyBase data virtualization will continue to be fully supported as a scale-up feature in SQL Server.

Secondly, Cloudera (CDP) and Hortonworks (HDP) external data sources will also be retired for all in-market versions of SQL Server and will not be included in SQL Server 2022. Moving forward, support for external data sources will be limited to product versions in mainstream support by the respective vendor. You are encouraged to use the new object storage integration functionality available in SQL Server 2022.

In SQL Server 2022, users will need to configure their external data sources to use new connectors when connecting to Azure Storage. The table below summarizes the change:

The path forward

If you wish to run analytics on-premises, SQL Server 2022 also provides important new capabilities, building upon its data virtualization suite of connectors by providing object storage integration over REST APIs. We will also continue to invest in the Spark SQL connector to ensure first-class connectivity from Apache Spark to all our SQL products. Additionally, we continue to invest in expanding hybrid capabilities with Azure Arc-enabled data services.

Integrating SQL Server with cloud analytics solutions is a critical capability, which is why we are introducing Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022, the latest release of SQL Server, which will be generally available to purchase later this year. This is a major investment in helping you realize cloud-scale analytics in near real-time on your operational data.

Our priority is to empower you with the tools and services that ensure SQL Server integrates seamlessly into the world of analytic workloads in the cloud by blending operational, analytical, and virtual use cases in our flagship database engine. Please contact your Microsoft account manager if you need assistance in exploring how Microsoft can best empower your analytical needs.

¹Gartner Inc.: Use Cloud to Compose Analytics, BI and Data Science Capabilities for Reusability and Resilience, Julian Sun, Joao Tapadinhas, June 10, 2021.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

The post The path forward for SQL Server analytics appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Deliver faster performance than ever before with SQL Server and Azure

Hear directly from Microsoft’s Rohan Kumar and senior Microsoft engineering leaders during the day one kick-off keynote as they take you on a journey to a new universe shaped by our past—and built to take us into a limitless future. The cloud has created a whole new universe and advancements in Microsoft data products and services are your bridge.

You’ll see how you can use your existing SQL Server and Azure skills, and learn about new tools and platforms available from Microsoft to deliver faster performance than ever before. You’ll see how to shape your data so you can harness its power to find a new galaxy of insights, answers, and predictions. And you will hear about new innovations that continue Microsoft’s rich heritage of data integrity and governance.

Additionally, in the special on-demand keynote, Microsoft Azure Data CTO Raghu Ramakrishnan and team will share a technical keynote and demos showing Azure Purview and SQL.

Register for the PASS Data Community Summit

Don’t miss this opportunity to see how Microsoft is uniquely positioned to provide you with an end-to-end data platform seamlessly integrating limitless database scale and performance, unmatched analytics and intelligence, and unified data governance.

After the keynotes, ground your learning with in-depth training in one of more than two dozen sessions Microsoft will be delivering. Hear the latest from the Engineering teams who develop the tools you use every day. After your sessions, don’t forget to visit the virtual exhibit hall where you can connect with our team across SQL Server 2022, Azure SQL, Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, Azure Arc, and more.

Register for PASS Data Community Summit today.

The post PASS Data Community Summit keynote: a bridge to a new universe appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

DPS 2021 will feature five parallel tracks focusing on Azure Data (Development and Administration), Advanced Analytics, Power BI, and Artificial Intelligence. The virtual platform will give a truly immersive experience to the attendees by offering live Q&A, networking lounge, Azure Data + AI Gurukul (Technical Round Tables), and community zone. Attendees can attend sessions and network amongst peers and speakers, convenient to their time zones. Delegates will get the session recordings for 12-month on-demand access. DPS 2021 offers an incredible opportunity to learn directly from our engineering teams, who will be sharing the latest advances and insights on the data platform, providing in-depth training across key products and technologies.

Bob Ward, Anna Hoffman, and Buck Woody will be the keynote speakers for DPS 2021. The trio will showcase SQL from edge to cloud.

Microsoft Azure Data Teams are delivering over 40 sessions at DPS 2021. Hear the latest from the teams who develop the tools you use every day, and engage in live discussions. Visit the virtual expo hall where you can connect with our team across SQL Server, Azure SQL, Azure Synapse Analytics, Power BI, and more.

DPS 2021 features a variety of learning formats including breakouts, deep-dives, short-drives, and demo-only sessions.

Register today

Register for Data Platform Virtual Summit today and be part of an amazing week of training convenient to your time zone and receive 12 months of on-demand access to world-class learning.

The post Microsoft at Data Platform Virtual Summit 2021 appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

There are several possible methodologies to choose from, and Microsoft provides tools to help you decide what’s right for your organization. For instance, you might use the Azure Database Migration Service to automate the process and ensure that you are compliant with Microsoft’s best practices from the start. Or you might simply leverage the Data Migration Assistant to assess your migration and identify any blocking issues or incompatibilities before executing one of the many strategies for migration, including:

• Back up the on-premises database and restore on Azure Virtual Machines (VM)
• Detaching database and log files, copying them to Azure Blob Storage, and attaching to Azure VM
• Physically shipping a hard drive with Windows Import/Export Service
• Using distributed Availability Groups for migration
• Transaction log shipping

With Pure Cloud Block Store™ for Azure from our partner Pure Storage, there is another easy option which warrants your consideration. With built-in replication capability from an on-premises FlashArray, it’s an easy way to replicate your SQL databases directly into Azure and then simply attach them to a SQL Server instance running on Azure VM.

Running SQL Server on an Azure Virtual Machine is one of the quickest and easiest ways to lift and shift your SQL workloads into the cloud. And with Cloud Block Store handling the data movement, it can be even easier. One of the great things about SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines is that it is the same SQL Server database engine you are used to running on-premises. For the most part, configuration, settings, maintenance, and performance tuning techniques are all going to be the same. Likewise, Cloud Block Store is running the same Purity operating environment as an on-premises FlashArray. Together, the two combine to give you a familiar management experience right from the start.

As a block storage service created from Azure VMs and Azure Managed Disks, Cloud Block Store extends these cloud-native building blocks to provide a vast array of rich data services which make it not only a great way to migrate data but also a compelling option for storing and managing SQL Server data long term. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Data replication that enables seamless migration and unlocks additional capabilities

Whether it’s replicating data from an on-premises array or among multiple Cloud Block Store instances, you can use the data replication functionality that comes natively with Cloud Block Store for easy data migration. That means you can asynchronously transfer database-consistent point-in-time snapshots directly into Azure, all while the on-premises production database stays up and running, then use the Azure copy for several additional purposes.

First and foremost, the data replication capability of Cloud Block Store can be used as the primary means to migrate data from an on-premises array into Azure. It’s fast, efficient, and completely offloads the task of data transfer from the SQL Server hosts, letting the storage array do all the heavy lifting. As a bonus, all the previous snapshots that were taken on the on-premises side become potential recovery or cloning points within Azure.

It’s also incredibly easy to set up with just a few simple steps:

1. Obtain a connection key from both the on-premises array and Cloud Block Store.
2. Use the keys to create an asynchronous replication connection between the two.
3. Create a protection group on the source array, add the desired source volumes, and specify a replication schedule to Cloud Block Store in Azure.
4. Once baseline replication is complete, connect the replicated volumes to Azure VM through iSCSI.

Once your database is in Azure, Cloud Block Store provides further options, including:

1. Disaster recovery (DR). Keep a frequently updated copy in Azure as part of a disaster recovery plan without the need for a physical secondary data center. Customers can take advantage of the licensing benefit for free SQL Server Disaster Recovery licenses in Azure VMs associated with on-premises primaries covered with Software Assurance.
2. Efficient copies for DR and dev/test. Create a cloned copy of that database that takes zero additional storage space and is available in an instant.
   • Use that clone to regularly exercise your DR strategy so that there are no surprises when you need it in an emergency.
   • You can create multiple copies that can be used for any number of purposes, not the least of which is establishing an agile dev/test environment in Azure with frequently updated copies of production data
3. High availability. Take database-consistent snapshot copies of your database running natively on Cloud Block Store and replicate them to other Cloud Block Store instances across availability zones. You can even replicate copies back on-premises if you’d like for greater business resilience.
4. Enterprise Data Services. Including industry-leading data reduction, which enables more cloud usage and lower TCO, ransomware protection through SafeMode, and business continuity with ActiveCluster™ across multiple availability zones.

Enable flexible storage

With Pure Cloud Block Store on Azure, you get fast, flexible storage from a foundation built on Azure disk, and building upon that, a host of advanced data features and functionality that enterprise customers have come to depend on, all provided directly in Azure. It provides a fast and efficient means to transport your data into the cloud and makes a number of options available to you once it’s there—from dev/test, to disaster recovery, to full-on production in the cloud with the highest levels of performance and data protection. Try Cloud Block Store out today and discover what Pure Cloud Block Store on Azure can do for you and your business.

Learn more

• Pure Cloud Block Store in the Azure Marketplace
• Enable Multi-Cloud Solutions with Pure and Azure
• Extend SQL Server Resilience with a Pure Validated Design
• Learn more about Cloud Block Store
• Microsoft Azure Migration Services

The post Accelerate SQL Server to Azure migration with Pure Cloud Block Store appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Azure Data Studio is a multi-database, cross-platform desktop environment for data professionals using the Microsoft family of on-premises and cloud data platforms on Windows, macOS, and Linux. To learn more, visit our GitHub.

The key highlights to cover this month include:

• Added new notebook improvements
• Added improvements to Azure Arc extension.
• New extension updates.
• Bug Fixes.

For a list of complete updates, refer to the Azure Data Studio release notes.

Added new notebook improvements

Start-up time performance improvements

When first launching Azure Data Studio, it can take a long time for the Jupyter server to start running. We found this to be an issue on Windows, so with the February release of Azure Data Studio, you will experience up to a 50 percent improvement on Jupyter Server start-up time. This allows you to start creating and editing your Jupyter notebooks even faster.

Edit Jupyter Book through UI

As users are trying out Jupyter Books, which is a collection of Jupyter notebooks organized by a table of contents, users are looking for easy customization through UI-guided experiences. Users found it painful to update a .yml file in order to organize the Jupyter Book in the order that they wanted.

With the February release of Azure Data Studio, you no longer need to mess with a .yml file.

In the notebooks viewlet, you can now right-click a notebook or section in a Jupyter Book and move it to the correct location. The right-click option will take you to the quick picker that auto-detects all sections inside the Jupyter Book.

This quality of life feature was a highly requested feature, and we are happy to bring this to customers with the February release.

Preview of passing parameters through URI

With the February release, users can now pass parameters through notebook URI directly in Azure Data Studio.

New parameterization documentation

In a previous release, we announced Papermill parameterization support in Azure Data Studio. We now have updated documentation so you can start using parameterization yourself. Try it out now.

Added improvements to Azure Arc extension

Since the preview, the Azure Arc extension has continued to add new functionality. With the February release, users can now support multiple data controllers. This now gives you a flexible experience to view all the data controllers you want to connect and manage.

We have also added a new option in the connection dialog to ask for a Kube configuration file path to connect to a controller.

New extension updates

With this release, we have pushed out new versions of the following extensions. If you have not tried out these extensions before, check out each extension’s documentation and try it out.

• Profiler
• Kusto
• SQL Database projects
• Machine learning
• DacPac
• Schema compare

Bug fixes

As mentioned in the previous blog, we are focusing on fundamentals and driving the bug count down across the product. In February, we have fixed 51 bugs. A full list of bug fixes for the February release can be found here.

If you would like to help make Azure Data Studio a great product, please share any feedback or report issues through our Issues page. Our engineering team is regularly going through the untriaged issues and assigning issues into different monthly milestones so that you know we are working on it. Your votes on issues help us prioritize.

Contact us

If you have any feature requests or issues, please submit them to our GitHub issues page. For any questions, feel free to comment below or tweet us @AzureDataStudio.

The post The February 2021 release of Azure Data Studio is now available appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Today, we’re announcing the release of the latest cumulative update (CU9) for SQL Server Big Data Clusters, which includes important capabilities:

• Support to configure BDC post deployment.
• Improved experience for encryption at rest.
• Ability to install Python packages at Spark job submission time.
• Upgraded software versions for most of our OSS components (Grafana, Kibana, FluentBit, etc.) to ensure Big Data Clusters images are up to date with the latest enhancements and fixes.
• Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.

This announcement highlights some of the major improvements, provides additional context to better understand the design behind these capabilities, and points you to relevant resources to learn more and get started.

Configuring SQL Server Big Data Clusters to meet your business needs

SQL Server Big Data Clusters, a feature released as part of SQL Server 2019, is a data platform for operational and analytical workloads. We are announcing new configuration management functionality as part of today’s CU9 release. Workload requirements are constantly changing and these enhancements will help customers ensure that their Big Data Cluster is always prepared for their needs.

Configuration management is the ability to alter or tune various parts of the Big Data Cluster after deployment and to provide users with clarity into the cluster’s configurations. This allows administrators to configure the Big Data Cluster configurations to meet their workload’s needs. Whether an administrator wants to turn on SQL Agent, define the baseline resources for their organization’s Spark jobs, or even see what settings are configurable at each scope—configuration management is the one-stop solution to meet these needs.

To enable this functionality, we are exposing new commands to the azdata  command line interface (CLI). Azdata, an interface to manage a BDC, now includes post-deployment configuration functionality to set, diff, and apply configuration settings. To start, customers can configure settings at the cluster, service, and resource scope and then commit them for change. After applying pending configuration changes, customers can monitor the process through azdata or Azure Data Studio. Once the update is completed, the Big Data Cluster is ready for the next workload.

Learn more and get started with configuration management.

Spark job library management

Data engineers and data scientists often want to experiment with and use a variety of different libraries and packages as part of their workflows. There are separate ways to do this for each language including importing from Maven, installing from Python Package Index (PyPi) or conda, or installing from Microsoft R Application Network (MRAN). Before today, customers could import jars from Maven or reference custom packages stored in Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) through Spark job configurations.

Starting in CU9, data engineers and data scientists now have added flexibility for their PySpark jobs through job-level virtual environments. They can easily configure a conda virtual environment and get to work with their favorite Python libraries.

Learn how to configure a job-level Spark environment.

Improving the experience on encryption at rest

In SQL Server Big Data Clusters CU8, we introduced a comprehensive encryption at rest feature set that focused on system-managed keys. This enabled application-level encryption capabilities to all data stored in the platform, on both SQL Server and HDFS. The HDFS experience provided at that time for administrators was centered on usage of Azure Data Studio Notebooks to control all aspects of the feature. Starting with CU9, in addition to expanding the Notebook experience, we are enabling HDFS encryption zones and HDFS key management through azdata. This enables the automation of encryption at rest administrative tasks for HDFS administrators, a much desirable and consistent feature of the SQL Server Big Data Clusters platform.

To learn more about the new notebooks and the new azdata commands, visit the release notes.

Ready to learn more?

Check out the SQL Server CU9 release notes for Big Data Clusters to learn more about all of the improvements available with the latest update. For a technical deep-dive on Big Data Clusters, read the documentation and visit our GitHub repository.

Follow the instructions on our documentation page to get started and deploy Big Data Clusters.

The post What’s new with SQL Server Big Data Clusters appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

On February 3-4, the Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory teams are partnering on a learning event for the community to come together to learn about Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory, meet the engineering teams behind these services, and learn how you can get started with using Azure Data Factory and Azure SQL together.

The digital event occurs across two time zones:

• February 3, 2021 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time
• February 4, 2021 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Singapore Time

Register now for the free digital event today! We can’t wait to meet everyone at the virtual event.

Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory

Many people are familiar with SQL Server and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). These are services that global enterprise customers love for all their data and data integration scenarios.

Azure is a great place for SQL Server workloads. The Azure SQL family of SQL cloud databases provides flexible options for application migration, modernization, and development. The Azure SQL family is comprised of SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Edge, all of which are based on the same core SQL Server engine. Migrate your SQL Server workloads to Azure SQL and improve your total cost of ownership (TCO), accelerate your time to market, and operate more efficiently.

Azure Data Factory is a fully managed, serverless data integration solution for ingesting, preparing, and transforming all your data at scale. In addition, you can re-host your SSIS packages using Azure Data Factory, enabling you to realize significant costs savings. Azure Data Factory enables you to bring data from diverse and multiple data sources to Azure SQL and more.

At the digital event, occurring around the clock, you will meet and interact live with many members of the Microsoft Azure Data product group including industry experts Bob Ward, Buck Woody, Davide Mauri, Julie Koesmarno, Silvano Coriani, Mara-Florina Steiu, Arvind Shyamsundar, Anna Hoffman, Srini Acharya, Drew Skwiers-Koballa, Andreas Wolter, Mark Kromer, Sandy Winarko, Wee Hyong Tok, Ye Xu, Abhishek Narain, Linda Wang, Shirley Wang and more!

Data Exposed special

Data Exposed Live is coming to you on all major streaming platforms, namely Learn TV, Microsoft’s around the clock, free channel. The show, hosted by Anna Hoffman, airs live every Wednesday at 9:00 AM PT.

This digital event is a Data Exposed Special—kicking off with a special episode of Data Exposed Live at 9:00 AM PT. The event is packed with an exciting agenda, which also includes two Ask the Experts sessions.

We are looking forward to meeting the Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory community.
Register now for the free digital event today! We can’t wait to meet everyone.

Register today to:

• Learn about everything you need to know about Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory. From creating the right data architecture to the future of cloud migration, to deep dives into performance tuning, and more.
• Connect with Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory industry experts and get live answers to your questions.
• Participate in a global hackathon that runs through the week.

The post Around the clock with Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

This past year has been marked by a combination of challenges and change. Like so many people and organizations across the globe, we have all faced uncertainly and the need to adapt.

Recently, the PASS organization, formerly known as the Professional Association for SQL Server, announced that it ceased operations on January 15, 2021. We would like to thank PASS for its work to grow and support our SQL family over the last two decades.

Although Microsoft built SQL Server, it’s clear that the passion and dedication from each of you is what makes it thrive.

To empower the community, we are providing you with some resources to help you continue to connect with one another, learn and develop your skills, and grow in your careers.

• Community – We have built a community landing page for local user groups to increase visibility and discover communities and resources. The site showcases local user groups to help grow their membership and share upcoming meetings and events. This web presence points to new and existing training and resources covering SQL Server and Azure Data.
• Empowerment – We are providing the space and tools for local user group leaders to establish and nurture their user groups. You will be able to manage your groups, including membership lists and your content.
• Connections – We want you to keep and deepen the connections that are at the heart of our community. To do so, we are inviting qualified user groups to join our Meetup Pro network, which will provide tools for you to organize and grow. We are also providing access for qualified user groups to Microsoft Teams so you can meet virtually. For those interested in more details, please fill out a survey.

Check out the Azure Data Community landing page today to join local user groups and access SQL Server and Azure Data content.

If you are a user group leader interested in finding out more about how to access and use these resources, or if you have additional feedback on how we can best support the SQL community, please let us know.

The post Resources for the SQL Server and Azure Data community appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.