About a month ago, I learned something new. I learned how to run SQL Server 2019 in Docker and how to set up my demo environment in a container. Cool stuff! I like whales. Whales are cool.

While learning, I started writing this blog post. Then I got distracted and never finished it. This weekend, I had to set up my demo environment again. It was the perfect opportunity to update the content and finally publish this post.

(Why did I have to set up everything again? Oh, it’s a long story that involves disk cleanup and a Cathrine who likes to delete things to keep her computer tidy. Ok, it’s not really a long story. It was more like “oops, I accidentally deleted my container”.)

Anyway! Back to the actual content.

In this post, I share my approach and code snippets for:

1. Installing Docker
2. Getting SQL Server 2019
3. Running SQL Server 2019 in a Docker Container
4. Restoring Demo Databases (AdventureWorks and WideWorldImporters)

Installing Docker

I knew nothing about Docker or containers a month ago. But! I’m lucky to have smart friends 🤩 Andrew Pruski (@dbafromthecold) wrote Running SQL Server 2019 CTP in a Docker container as part of his brilliant blog post series on containers.

I decided to start with his walkthrough and do exactly what he did. It worked pretty well for me! See below 👇🏻

Last year at Microsoft Ignite, I was fortunate enough to interview Mike Flasko and Sanjay Krishnamurthi. This year, I got to have a follow-up chat with Mike Flasko and Sharon Lo! We talked about the recent and upcoming Azure Data Factory updates 🤓

In this interview, Mike and Sharon share the highlights from their session at Microsoft Ignite 2018. What are visual Data Flows? How are Azure Data Factory Data Flows different from the recently announced Power BI Dataflows? What’s on the Azure Data Factory roadmap? And finally, how can you provide feedback and get involved in private previews?

Azure Data Factory Updates with Mike Flasko and Sharon Lo

(I apologize for the unsteady video 😔 Unfortunately, I didn’t see how shaky it was until post-production. If it gets too distracting to watch, please just listen. Mike and Sharon share a lot of interesting things!)

Thank you so much to Mike and Sharon for chatting with me on a busy day 😃

In a previous blog post, we looked at how to use C#/VB Code Files in Biml. There are several benefits to moving custom C# code into separate files. It allows you to reuse that code across multiple projects and solutions. You can maintain the code in your editor of choice, taking advantage of intellisense and syntax highlighting. And finally, my personal favorite: you can create custom extension methods.

In this post, we will look at how to simplify our Biml projects by creating and using C# extension methods. We will build on the examples from the previous C#/VB Code Files in Biml blog post.

TENK Tech Camp 2018 was a 2-day event for teenage girls who are interested in technology and science. On August 9-10th, 2018, over 200 girls gathered at Teknisk Museum (Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology) in Oslo, Norway to attend workshops about coding, hacking, artificial intelligence, chatbots, design thinking, app development, web development - and rocket engineering!

Do you have large Visual Studio solutions with many projects? Are you looking for an easy way to hide some projects while working on others? Maybe you are a fellow speaker looking for a way to group and organize your demo files? Solution Folders may be what you are looking for!