Intro You want to start using Terraform to manage your Azure infrastructure. To get started you will need to get your local development environment setup. In this post I will walk you through setting up Terraform and the Azure CLI on Windows. For a video walkthrough check out my YouTube video. PowerShell I’m a huge fan of PowerShell so that is my preferred way to interact with Terraform. If you are using Windows you will already have a version of PowerShell available on your machine. I like to use the latest and greatest so I start by installing the latest version which as of this writing is 7.3.1. Download the package and install it, you’re done. ...

Intro In our previous post we discussed the difference between the AthenaHealth data delivery options. In this post we are going to cover how to connect Power BI to Data View. This post assumes you have already installed Power BI on your computer. If you have not you can download it here. Gather Information To get started you will need to find out what your SnowFlake URL is. In Athena if you open Practice Manager Admin there is an option for Data View Settings. To access this your Athena account will need to be in the Data View Admin role. Once on the Data View Setting page you should see your URL at the top of the page. Copy that URL somewhere so we can use it later. ...

Intro Athenahealth offers two options for receiving data from their EMR. They offer either the Data Warehouse Feed or Data View. This post will describe each option and the difference between the two. Data Warehouse Feed The data warehouse feed is athena’s traditional data offering. It has been around for a quite some time and functions like most traditional data feeds. Data is delivered on a daily basis in flat files to an FTP site. ...

Intro In some scenarios a vendor or other 3rd party will send you a copy of their log shipping backups so you can keep a reporting copy of their database. Today’s post will cover how we can use dbatools to automate the restore process. This post assumes you have already restored the initial full backup and are now at the point where you are ready to automate the transaction log backups you are receiving. ...

Intro In this post I will describe how to manage the state of a VM with Azure Data Factory (ADF). I was inspired to write this post after reading a very similar walk through on Tech Talk Corner. A VM can be in one of several states, for this post we are going to focus on Running and Deallocated. When a VM is running you are being billed for it and able to access its resources. If the VM is deallocated you are not being billed for it and its resources are inaccessible. In many scenarios it makes sense to have a VM in a deallocated state to save on cost and only keep it running when absolutely necessary. ...

Intro SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is a great product. Out of the box SSMS is an awesome tool that many of us have come to know and love. In my quest for efficiency I have found some very helpful settings that can be changed. If you spend most of your day in SSMS like I do, these changes can help you be more productive. Version First and foremost is the version you are running. If you aren’t running the latest version of SSMS go download it now. It’s free! SSMS has received a lot of love from Microsoft over the last couple years. Now updates come out regularly instead of with the SQL Server release cycle. If you are still running SSMS 2005 I’m begging you to go download the latest version and give it a try. ...

I had some issues installing dbatools over the weekend and wanted to share my experience. If you have not heard of dbatools I encourage you to go check it out and see what it can do. The easiest method to install dbatools is to open PowerShell as administrator and run the following command: Install-Module dbatools Following the install instructions on the dbatools website and other relevant blog posts around the web the install should be as easy as that. In my case it was not. ...

You are handed a SQL Server that someone else set up and has, or more likely has not, maintained over time. You are now responsible for this server, but have limited time to check it out because of your busy schedule. What are your first 3 SQL Server settings to check? 1. Backups This should always without a doubt be the first thing you check. If backups are failing or even are non existent, you need to know about it and make it your first priority to fix. Now that this server is your responsibility, the business is going to look at you when the server crashes and they need a restore. Not being able to recover any data is a great way to get fired! ...

Ever wish your data was a little different so it is easier to query? Don’t fret, we have all had those queries that are gigantic and become too cumbersome to read through or modify. A CTE, a.k.a. Common Table Expression, can be the savior you have been wishing for. They are great for separating different pieces of your query and performing some tasks before your query runs. To use a CTE: ...

Once upon a time a vendor set up a new SQL Server at the company I was working for. For whatever reason they decided it best to not work with the local DBA. A few weeks later a server admin emails me asking if I can help out with an issue they were having. He says the vendor has lost the sa password and cannot connect to the SQL Server instance. After having a good chuckle I agreed to help out and reset the SQL Server sa password. Here is how I did it: ...