Reading Notes #167

Suggestion of the week

• SQL Server to Azure Search Synchronization (Scott Klein)- Great demo with Liam C. This is a 15-minute video that you don't want t miss.

Cloud

• Now easier to create a sample Azure SQL Database and develop schema in Visual Studio (Sanjay Nagamangalam) - Wow, I cannot be easier than that. The post also contains a short video that shows how to do it.

• How to Sync SQL Server Data with Azure Search (Liam Cavanagh) - This post explains all the advantage to use Azure Search to implement a fulltext search in your application. It also shows how to do it.

Programming

• .NET Blog (Christiaan Rakowski, Linux Al, Ron, Nathan Dimitriades, Warren, EShy, Thomas Levesque, Svolo4, Jeremiah Gowdy, les, James S, Srigopal C Immo Landwerth [MSFT]) - Very interesting and complete post that explains the goals behind the .Net Core and how it is useful to us.

• Clean Code – Is my code always readable? - A simple but very efficient way to think when we a writing or re-factoring our code. I like it.

Books

DynamoDB Applied Design Patterns
By Uchit Vyas, Prabhakaran Kuppusamy
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Released: September 2014
ISBN 13: 9781783551897

This book takes you where you are and brings you directly in the cumulus. It starts gently by explaining the basic of the NoSQL, then move to DynamoDB fundamental: what is a data model and how to create a table.

Chapter after chapter, the book moves you to the next level by bringing new complexities and explains how to manage them with his simple but complete scenario. All the code samples are in Java and extremely well explained. With my .Net background, I always understood.

The book ends by presenting many best practices to get the best of DynamoDB, and compare it to other popular NoSQL databases.

I will definitely recommend this book to all people looking for a NoSQL database. DynamoDB is unavoidable when we are looking for a no-relational database, and this book is a must to have in our bookshelf.

Miscellaneous

• How to Ask for Feedback That Will Actually Help You - Interesting post about the importance of a good communication.

~Frank B

Let's play with Azure SQL Database backup and the Point in Time Restore

Did you know that you can have: a full database backup once a week, a differential database backups once a day, and a transaction log backups every 5 minutes of your Azure SQL Database? Did you know that all this is done automatically when you are using the new Azure SQL Basic, Standard or Premier service tiers? Even more, you will have access to the Point in Time Restore self-service. In this post, I will show how to "configure" the database to get the automatic backups, and how to do a restore.

Setup the automatic backup

If you are like me, your Azure SQL Databases are set to Web or Business edition.  The first thing to do will be to change that. You will need to do it anyway since the Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015[1].  That the only required since backup service are built-in the Basic, Standard and Premium tiers.

For the demo purpose, I will use the Basic tier. To change the tier of the database, go on the Azure Portal. In the left panel click on the SQL Databases et select the database that you want to update (ie: FrankDemo). Once the right section is updated, select the Scale tab and change the Service Tiers for: Basic.



Now, if you return in the Dashboard tab, a new option will be available.



Your database now has built-in backups to support self-service Point in Time Restore and Geo-Restore. Azure SQL Database automatically creates backups using the following schedule:

• Full database backup once a week
• differential database backups once a day
• transaction log backups every 5 minutes.

The full and differential backups are replicated across regions.

The retention period will vary between 7 and 35 days base on the selected tiers.[2]

Restore an Azure SQL Database

Restoring a database is really easy. Remember that new button at the bottom of the screen, it's now time to click on it.

This will bring the settings options. It's now time to type the name of your restored database. Note that you must use a different name than the original.  It's always a good practice to double-check that you are pointing on the good database on the correct server. Pick a restore point using the slider or by filling the date and time fields. When you are done click the button. The portal will let you know that the restore is successfully completed by a notification.




I hope that this post shows you how easy it is to use the backup/restore with Azure SQL Database. Thank you for ready, Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.



[1]: Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015, more
details on the Windows Azure site.
[2]: Detail about the retention period on Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore



~ Frank Boucher