There are a number of data types that are currently unsupported on PDW. Among those are SQL_VARIANT. The interesting part of that is that SQL_VARIANT along with several other unsupported data types are found all over the place in system tables in PDW. There is a simple solution, convert the value to something like VARCHAR. Well this wouldn’t be a blog post if that was all I had to say on...
The SQL Server PDW (Parallel Data Warehouse) is a beast of a machine. Spreading workload across multiple nodes inside the PDW provides a huge performance gain over a traditional SQL Server; however, when laying out tables it is a little different. There are two options for creating tables on the disk: Replicated: The entire table is stored on each node of the PDW Distributed: The table data is...
Bradley Schacht is a Principal Program Manager on the Microsoft Fabric product team based in Jacksonville, FL. Bradley is a former consultant, trainer, and has authored 5 SQL Server and Power BI books, most recently the Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide. As a member of the Microsoft Fabric product team, Bradley works directly with customers to solve some of their most complex data problems and helps shape the future of Microsoft Fabric. He frequently presents at community events around the country, is a contributor to sites such as SQLServerCentral.com, and is a member of the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG).