What I did for the week ending 2018/07/21

I found a version of my favorite SSDT presentation (from PASS Summit 2016) on YouTube. On YouTube, it is named "Continuous Integration with SQL Server Data Tools", presented by Jon Boulineau for the Nashville SQL Server Users Group.

This seems to be an earlier (?) version of a presentation called "Agile Development Fundamentals: Continuous Integration with SSDT", given at a SQL Saturday. In an earlier blog post, I named the PASS version of the presentation as "my new favorite SSDT video". Both presentations were done by the same person and seem to be the same content. The sound on the YouTube version isn't as good as the PASS Summit version, but you do not have to go through the PASS sign-up process to see it. (Though I do recommend PASS for anyone who wants to know how SQL Server works or how Microsoft expects you to use it.)

Jon goes over several things, including an introduction to SSDT, the test project feature and deploying builds. It's just over an hour long.

According to Microsoft's Certification Planning web site, I am officially a "Microsoft Certified Professional", having passed the following exams:

• Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012/2014
• Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012/2014 Databases
• Implementing a Data Warehouse

I'm going to need to evaluate what exam(s) to take next. The versions of SQL Server that I'm tested on are getting old and dusty but I need more Azure in my (professional) life.

I have started the edX.org "Azure 215x: Cloud Administration" course. Partly, I am interested in how edX runs it's online courses. I've taken a few other thing online over the years. I tend to do better with self-directed learning. The course is not very long, just a few hours, but I'm going to drag my feet until August starts in order to maximize the free time I have to use Azure tools. (There is a free account level for 12 months, but the minimum granularity seems to be "one month", so I'll dilly-dally for a week.)

Microsoft is now saying that you can get security patches for SQL Server 2008 for free after extended support ends on 7/9/2019. The catch is that you have to move your SQL Server 2008 instance to Azure. IOW, they are dangling extended lifetime for existing SQL Server 2008 applications in front of organizations in order to get more people onto their cloud systems.

What I did for the week ending 2018/07/07

I do not have much to report this week.

I've started the Microsoft Professional Cloud Administration course over at edX.org. I've only done the very first units and have yet to form an opinion.

I'll be looking at learning a few things about Confluence in the upcoming weeks,as well.

What I did for the week ending 2018/06/30

Over the last two weeks, I've been watching PASS Summit 2016 videos. No particular presentation really stands out and I've been watching presentations that cover topics outside of my core competencies, so I haven't been keeping an inventory.

I've signed up for an edX course on Azure. I expect this to take up all of my training time budget for the next few months. I've taken short online courses before, including Rhetoric, Learning and Spanish, but this will be my first time taking an edX course. Those low-intensity courses and required only a few hours a week, while (IIRC) the edX course materials state that I should budget 12 hours a week for the next three months. I'm excited to see how a more demanding course will work out.