Skip to content

Data Platform professionals survival guide for long weekend

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In this post I want to do a Data Platform professionals survival guide for a long weekend. Because I’m aware that a lot of people reading this have long weekends off work now and again.

For example, this coming weekend various people around the world have a long weekend off to celebrate Easter.

Anyway, because you may want to look at Data Platform related things outside of work and I have some suggestions for you.

I have ordered the suggestions below by how complex I think they are. Of course, you are more then welcome to comment if you think it should be in another order. You can click on one of the links below to go straight to one.

Old Data Platform posts over long weekend

Now some of you may just want to read some of my older posts which you can easily navigate to on this site. However, previously I did list some of my older posts in one post.

Within this previous post are links to other posts about various things. For instance, resolving index issues and maintaining large databases better. You can view this list in detail here.

Watch Data Platform training videos for professionals

Now you can watch various Data Platform videos online, and you can do this in various places. For instance, sites like YouTube or Pluralsight (if you have a subscription).

Become Azure Data Studio professional over weekend

You can download Azure Data Studio and see what it has to offer. For example, recently it has added the ability to use SQL notebooks. You can read more about it and
download it here.

Download SSMS v18 RC1 to test Data Platform over long weekend

You can also download SSMS v18 RC1 to see what it has to offer. Currently, it appears to have a smaller footprint then version 17 which I had installed previously.

What I’ve found pretty good about it is that if you right click instance names you now have the option to open SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio. Of course, you need Azure Data Studio installed for this to work. Which I provided the link for above.

Install Hadoop Sandbox for long weekend of Data Platform experiments

Previously on Twitter somebody asked where to start when wanting to look at Hadoop on their own computer. Afterwards, I replied letting them know they can download a special virtual machine.

Now this virtual machine is an installation of Hadoop already prepared for use on a local computer. Which is called a sandbox. In addition, there are tutorials online you can use with it.

Furthermore, you can download them for different operating systems and hypervisors. You can find out more about these in detail here.

Install and learn Docker for Data Platform

You can take the time over the Easter weekend to download and install Docker to see how you can use it. In addition, there are multiple posts online by people online that you can use as a starting point.

However, to start with you can read how to download and install it in detail here.

Become Linux professional for Data Platform needs

A lot of new features for SQL Server 2019 require you to have some Linux knowledge if you want to use them. Of course, how much depends on how you intend to use any of them.

If you’re unsure about which version of Linux to use to start with you can read my previous post. It contains details about which versions you can use, which you can view in detail here.

Big Data Cluster Workshop

You look to do the Big Data Cluster workshop which is available online.

For those of you unaware of what Big Data Clusters are, they are a new feature in SQL Server 2019. Which allows you to work with Big Data solutions within SQL Server.

As a matter of fact, it’s fairly involved so you’ll need a significant amount of spare time. You can find out more about it in detail here.

Become Data Platform professional in SQL Server 2019

In addition to learning about Big Data clusters in SQL Server 2019, you could take the time to learn about the other new features as well.

For instance, you could download the latest CTP and then read the SQL Server documentation. Previously I wrote a post about current learning resources for SQL Server 2019, which you can view here.

Of course, if you do this you can test the results of my experiment in my previous post. Which is where I tested the new Database Scoped configuration for online index rebuilds with various compatibility levels. You can view that post in detail here.

Become professional in Azure using various guides

Now if you are ambitious you could look to test various services in Azure. Depending on your amount of experience with it you may need to figure out where to start. Luckily, I previously posted a guide that you can use here.

Final words about Data Platform professionals survival guide

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Data Platform professionals survival guide for a long weekend. In addition, I hope those of you who celebrate Easter enjoy it whatever your plans are.

Of course, if anybody has any other suggestions you can add them as a comment.

Data Platform professionals survival guide for long weekend
Published inFood for thought

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *