8 min read
Power BI Hybrid Tables: A Live DirectQuery Partition on Import
How Power BI hybrid tables add a DirectQuery partition to an incremental refresh policy, what the preview requires, and when Import alone is the better call.
Blog
Thoughts on data engineering, cloud architecture, and technology. 2205 articles and counting.
Showing 24 of 2205 posts — page 69 of 92
8 min read
DirectQuery for Power BI Datasets: Extending a Certified Model
How DirectQuery for Power BI datasets lets teams extend a certified model with their own data, what the preview limits are, and when not to chain.
8 min read
Power BI Composite Models: Choosing Import, DirectQuery or Dual
How to set storage modes table by table in a Power BI composite model, when Dual earns its place, and how aggregations keep DirectQuery facts fast.
8 min read
Power BI in Early 2022: What's GA, What's Preview, What to Adopt
A status check on Power BI's newer modelling, performance and ALM features as of January 2022, with my view on which to adopt now and which to pilot.
7 min read
Measure Your Azure Carbon Footprint Before You Try to Shrink It
How to use the Emissions Impact Dashboard for Azure to baseline cloud emissions, find the workloads that matter, and cut waste with tools you already have.
7 min read
Azure Advisor Score (Preview): Read It as a Trend, Not a Grade
How the preview Azure Advisor Score is weighted, why dismissals inflate it, and how to pair it with Resource Graph queries before you report it upward.
7 min read
Well-Architected Reviews as a Habit, Not a Kickoff Ritual
How to run Azure Well-Architected Reviews on a cadence: what the assessment covers, what Azure Advisor adds between reviews, and what neither can tell you.
8 min read
Cloud Adoption Framework: The Half That Isn't Landing Zones
How to use the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for strategy, planning, governance and operations, not just as a landing zone template library.
7 min read
Azure Landing Zones: Accelerator, Terraform Module or Your Own Bicep
What an Azure landing zone is in early 2022, and how to choose between the portal accelerator, the Terraform module and your own Bicep.
6 min read
Azure Blueprints Is Still in Preview: Hedging With Bicep and Template Specs
Azure Blueprints has sat in preview since 2018; here's how to keep landing zone governance portable with Bicep, Template Specs, Policy and locks.
8 min read
Azure Policy as Code: Repo Layout, Pipeline and Staged Rollout
How to run Azure Policy from a Git repo with Bicep: what to version, how to stage controls safely, and how to test without a local evaluator.
7 min read
ARM What-If in CI/CD: Reviewing Bicep Changes Before They Ship
How to use ARM what-if to review Bicep deployments in pull requests, what its output really tells you, and the noise and blind spots to plan around.
6 min read
Bicep Private Module Registry: Publishing and Versioning with ACR
How to run a private Bicep module registry on Azure Container Registry: publishing, aliases, immutable versions, and when template specs fit better.
6 min read
Bicep at v0.4 in January 2022: Ready for Production, With Caveats
Where Azure Bicep stands in January 2022: what v0.4 gives you in production, the gaps that still bite, and when I'd still pick Terraform instead.
6 min read
Dependabot Without the PR Flood: Config, Auto-Merge and Triage
How to configure Dependabot so update PRs stay reviewable: schedules, PR limits, ignore rules, safe auto-merge with GitHub Actions, and alert triage.
7 min read
GitHub Secret Scanning: What to Do When the Alert Fires
How GitHub secret scanning works in early 2022, what it misses, and a practical playbook for triaging alerts, custom patterns, and rotating leaked keys.
7 min read
Tuning CodeQL Code Scanning: Query Suites, Custom Queries and SARIF
How to tune GitHub code scanning in early 2022: choosing CodeQL query suites, scoping paths, writing a custom query, and adding third-party SARIF results.
7 min read
GitHub Copilot Technical Preview: Should Your Team Try It?
What GitHub Copilot's technical preview does well, where it fails, and the IP, privacy and review questions to answer before a team relies on it.
7 min read
GitHub Advanced Security: What You Get and How to Roll It Out
What GitHub Advanced Security includes in early 2022, how its active-committer licensing works, and a staged plan for enabling CodeQL and secret scanning.
8 min read
Azure DevOps in 2022: Lock Down Your YAML Pipelines First
Going into 2022, the Azure Pipelines features worth adopting are the security controls: environments, checks, protected repos and scoped tokens.
7 min read
Azure Hybrid Benefit as Code: Only Claim Licences You Can Prove
Set Azure Hybrid Benefit in Bicep, audit it with Resource Graph and Azure Policy, and size core licences so the discount never becomes a compliance finding.
8 min read
Sizing an Azure VM Reservation: Buy the Floor, Not the Average
How to work out how many Azure Reserved VM Instances to buy: find your steady usage floor, use instance size flexibility, and read the recommendations API.
8 min read
Designing for Eviction: Architecture Patterns for Azure Spot VMs
Spot VMs only save money if the design expects eviction: a regular base tier, diversified Spot pools, queue-driven workers and a Scheduled Events handler.
7 min read
Azure Spot VMs: Eviction Policy, Max Price and the 30-Second Notice
Azure Spot VM eviction explained: capacity vs price eviction, Deallocate vs Delete, max price, and handling the Scheduled Events Preempt notice in Python.