How-To Archives - Ballard Chalmers

Azure SQL Database Serverless

12th August 2021
Arun Sirpal
Azure, Blog, Data, How-To, Software Development

Azure SQL Database Serverless is a compute tier that is fundamentally different to the classic provisioned tiers that we are used to within Azure SQL Database. This is best used for those databases that are ever-changing with unpredictable patterns.

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Easy Analytics and Data Visualisation Part 3 – Visualising Azure Synapse Analytics Data in Power BI

26th January 2021
Jennifer Stirrup
Azure Modern Data Warehouse, Blog, Business Intelligence, Data, How-To, Software Development

In this final part of the blog series, the data has been imported and transformed in Azure Synapse Analytics and now we can work with the data so it can be displayed in Power BI.

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EASY ANALYTICS AND DATA VISUALISATION PART 2 — WORKING WITH SQL IN AZURE SYNAPSE ANALYTICS

13th January 2021
Jennifer Stirrup
Azure Modern Data Warehouse, Blog, Business Intelligence, Data, How-To, Software Development

In this post, we focus on using SQL in Azure Synapse Analytics and conduct tasks such as creating tables and views, testing the tables, and formatting the data.

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Easy Analytics and Data Visualisation Part 1 — Data Engineering with Power Query

31st December 2020
Jennifer Stirrup
Azure Modern Data Warehouse, Blog, Business Intelligence, Data, How-To, Software Development

In the first post of this Azure Synapse Analytics & Power BI series, we cover data engineering with Power Query using Excel data files.

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HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT (MVP)

5th November 2020
Andrew Chalmers
Blog, Business, How-To, Software Development

Building a minimum viable product is the next step after completion of the proof of concept. This post looks at how to build a successful MVP.

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Azure Data Factory (ADF) – Building Pipelines

7th November 2019
Arun Sirpal
Azure, Blog, Data, How-To

This article by Microsoft MVP Arun Sirpal discusses Azure Data Factory. With this tool, you have access to a fully managed serverless cloud data integration tool that scales on-demand. This is done by building pipelines – these data-driven workflows usually perform the following steps shown below.

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Azure Logic Apps – Creating a Simple Logic App

3rd October 2019
Arun Sirpal
Application Integration, Azure, Azure Integration Services, Blog, How-To

This article by Microsoft MVP Arun Sirpal discusses Azure Logic Apps and gives a demonstration of its use with Twitter.

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How to Successfully Complete an Outsourced Custom Software Development Project (And Still Remain Friends) – Part One, Getting Started

12th September 2019
Andrew Chalmers
Ballard Chalmers, Blog, How-To, Project Delivery, Software Development

There are several factors that we consider the most important in successfully completing a software development project on time and in-budget. With this, we include the completed software doing what it’s supposed to do without error. And by the end of the project, everyone still remaining friends. So, we thought we would put our experiences into a blog series for you here.

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How to Create a Successful Software Development Proof of Concept – For Startups

As a startup, particularly a SaaS startup, this is what it is all about. Honing the key aspects to your idea and fine-tuning it into a truly workable, outstanding and viable product is the base of your whole enterprise. You need to see if it is practical, feasible, viable and truly useful and interesting for the end-user. This is where a Proof of Concept (POC) comes in.

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The Query Store – SQL Server

23rd July 2019
Arun Sirpal
Blog, Data, How-To, SQL Server

The Query Store was introduced back in SQL Server 2016 and with the incoming release of SQL Server 2019, it remains a very important feature to know and understand to utilise in performance tuning exercises. Not only is this feature available with on-premises SQL Server but it is a key tool to use when troubleshooting performance issues in Azure SQL Database.

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