I’m frequently on the move and switch between devices. I could be working at home one day, at a hotel working, on site at a customer office with no internet, on a plane. I just never know. Part of my workflow is running some of my daily activities on an Azure VM. I can get to it from pretty much anywhere and it doesn’t matter what device I do or don’t have access to, I can...
In a recent post I wrote about collecting server performance metrics using Performance Monitor, a free utility built into Windows. With a little work up front, we are able to collect metrics for minutes, hours, or even days to gain insights into how our servers are being used. I often use this to evaluate SQL Servers that my customers are migrating to Azure. It helps me figure out if their...
Whether you’re a DBA/administrator looking to tune a server, planning for hardware updates, or looking to make a move to the cloud there are a few key performance metrics you’re going to want to collect. How do you know if the bottleneck is memory, disk or CPU? How do you know which of the Azure VM sizes to choose? The answer to these questions and other lies in the performance...
In a recent post about creating Azure VMs using PowerShell, I noted a common issue that I run into where the name of the OS disk does not conform to naming standards. The format for a VM OS disk when created using the Azure portal or when not otherwise specified through PowerShell is {VMName}_OsDisk_1_{UniqueIdentifier}. For most organizations that does not meet their naming standards. For me, in...
Every so often I set out to create new resources in my Azure subscription using the command line tools (PowerShell or CLI) just to keep up to date on the changes and improvements in the different methods. While the Azure portal is a great GUI for creating virtual machines, it definitely leaves something to be desired from a customization standpoint. I’m fairly OCD about my environment and...
It should come as no surprise that we rely heavily on SharePoint for sharing documents at Microsoft. For the most part it is a great solution with few issues. We can subscribe to documents and libraries and get updates when items are modified or added then go view those documents in a web browser while on the go without needing to constantly be pulling down the latest version and wondering if it...
Note this fix only works on Windows Server 2012/Windows 8 or later. A different method is required on Windows Server 2008R2 or earlier which involves the use of the NETDOM command. For several years now I have been using Hyper-V for building out a virtual development environment on my laptop. Since I work as a consultant I have to handle a lot of different software scenarios. Some customers use...
Have you ever wanted to find out if someone is logged into a computer or maybe who is logged into a computer without having to remote in to check? Recently I was working on a project doing some SharePoint work using 3 accounts: Admin/Install, Farm and Service. The work I was doing required a lot of remote desktop switching between those three accounts, across three environments, plus the SQL...
Have you ever wanted to find out if someone is logged into a computer or maybe who is logged into a computer without having to remote in to check? Recently I was working on a project doing some SharePoint work using 3 accounts: Admin/Install, Farm and Service. The work I was doing required a lot of remote desktop switching between those three accounts, across three environments, plus the SQL...
Quickly setting up a domain controller is a vital step in creating a good demo environment. This post will walk you through a quick and easy set of scripts to get started. Step 1: Download and Install Windows Server 2012 If you don’t already have a blank image with Windows Server 2012 you can download the trial version directly from Microsoft here The trial will allow you to try out all...
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).