Introduction Purity is the operating environment that runs Pure Storage products like FlashArray and Cloud Block Store. Starting in Purity 6.0, you can assign tags to objects. This post shows you how to perform some basic tagging operations for volumes. What’s a Tag and Why Do I Care? A tag is a key/value pair that can be attached to an object in FlashArray, like a volume or a snapshot. Using tags enables you to attach additional metadata to objects for classification, sorting, and searching.

Last week I purchased a shiny new MacBook Air with an M2 processor. After I got all the standard stuff up and running, I set out to learn how to run SQL Server containers on this new hardware. This post shows you how to run SQL Server on Apple Silicon using colima. Colima is a container runtime that runs a Linux VM on your Mac. This Linux VM runs using the Virtualization framework hypervisor native in MacOS.

This post introduces you to the Pure Storage FlashArray OpenMetrics Exporter. It shows you how to get started quickly using Docker Compose so you can monitor your Pure Storage FlashArray environment. I implemented this in Docker Compose since that handles all the implementation and configuration steps for you. It specifically configures Prometheus’ data source and a Grafana dashboard for monitoring. Tip: If you’re building a persistent monitoring solution, I suggest using a dedicated Linux server running Docker Engine (Server) for Linux.

I’m pleased to announce that I will be presenting at this year’s PASS Summit. PASS Data Community Summit 2022 is the year’s largest gathering of data platform professionals in the US. This year I have a pre-conference workshop, a regular session, and a Learning Path session. Let’s dive into each. Pre-Conference Workshop: Become a Hybrid Architect My good friend Ben E. Weissman and I will teach a pre-conference workshop called “Become a Hybrid Architect” in this workshop we will cover the foundations needed to design and build a hybrid cloud strategy for your organization.

In this blog post, I’ve implemented two example environments for using SQL Server 2022’s s3 object integration. One for backup and restore to s3 compatible object storage and the other for data virtualization using Polybase connectivity to s3 compatible object storage. This work aims to get you up and running as quickly as possible to work with these new features. I implemented this in Docker Compose since that handles all the implementation and configuration steps for you.

Introduction In this post, I will walk you through how to set up MinIO, so you can use it to work with SQL Server 2022’s s3 object integrations. Working with s3 and SQL Server requires a valid and trusted TLS certificate. This can be a pain for some users and environments. So I’m writing this post so you can get off the ground running with this new feature set in SQL Server 2022.

Introducing S3 in SQL Server 2022 S3 compatible object storage integration is a new feature introduced in SQL Server 2022. There are two significant areas where SQL Server leverages this: backup and restore and data virtualization. This article will focus on getting started with using S3 compatible object storage for backups. Now let’s unpack that phrase ‘S3 compatible object storage’ a bit. AWS Simple Cloud Storage Service (S3) is a storage service AWS provides in their cloud.

My new course “Deploying and Managing Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Networking” is now available on Pluralsight here! If you want to learn about the course, check out the trailer here, or if you’re going to dive right in, check it out here! Azure Kubernetes Service is a platform-as-a-service that provides Kubernetes Services in the Azure Cloud. This course will teach you to design, configure, and manage networking, services, and disaster recovery in Azure Kubernetes Service.

Background If you’ve been using Availability Groups, you’re familiar with the replica seeding (sometimes called initializing, preparing or data sychronization) process. Seeding is a size of data operation, copying data from a primary replica to one or more secondary replicas. This is required before joining a database to an Availability Group. You can seed a replica with backup and restore or automatic seeding, each with its own challenges. Regardless of which method you use, the seeding operation can take a long amount of time.

My updated course “Configuring and Managing Kubernetes Security” is now available on Pluralsight here! If you want to learn about the course, check out the trailer here, or if you’re going to dive right in, check it out here! This course will teach you the fundamentals needed to configure and manage security in Kubernetes clusters. This course targets IT professionals who design and maintain Kubernetes and container-based solutions. The course can be used by the IT pro learning new skills and the system administrator or developer preparing to use Kubernetes both on-premises and in the Cloud.