Education
Hurray! I passed my 70-767 and earned my MCSE!
Passing the 70-767 Implementing a Data Warehouse exam has been a goal of mine for a while now, and I finally achieved that on 11/30/2020! The exam is going to be retired soon (January 31st, 2021), so this was cutting it close. And since the exam is going to be retired in 62 days of starting this post, I’m not going to post in my usual format for passing an exam. If you do have questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments. (Note: I do not plan on breaking the Microsoft NDA I signed in the exam, so any content in the comments will adhere to the NDA or will be removed.)
Hooray! I earned my Scaled Agilist (SAFe 5) badge!
On 10/6/2020, I took the Scaled Agile Framework 5 (SAFe 5) (Scaled Agilist – Leading SAFe) exam and passed! I want to thank my company SAIC for sponsoring me for this exam as it can be difficult and pricey to obtain. (This varies based on experience.) While I’m sure you are here to read about the exam and tips I have on it, I think it’s also important to go into what SAFe is and why you would want this certification.
Truncate vs Delete
There are many myths and misconceptions regarding TRUNCATE in SQL Server. I think this is heavily influenced by how other Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) handle TRUNCATE.
Myth one: You can’t rollback TRUNCATE.
You can actually ROLLBACK a TRUNCATE statement! (If it’s SQL Server.) Go ahead and create a table in a dev environment and give it a try!
CREATE TABLE dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff (ID INT); INSERT INTO dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff VALUES (1); BEGIN TRANSACTION SELECT * FROM dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff; TRUNCATE TABLE dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff; SELECT * FROM dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff; ROLLBACK TRANSACTION SELECT * FROM dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff; DROP TABLE dbo.TruncateVSDelete_RandomstringofStuff;In addition to being able to ROLLBACK a TRUNCATE statement, it doesn’t matter whether your database is in FULL , SIMPLE , or BULK-LOGGED , you can ROLLBACK regardless!
ELI5 how are join statements semantically structured?
There are some folks just starting out to SQL Server, maybe they come from another flavor of database or perhaps they have no history with SQL at all. The terminology we use to talk about the work we do can get a little confusing, and I was lost when I began learning about schema structures. This is my “Explain it like I’m five – on how join statements are semantically structured.”. This is geared to new users who are in the first 1-6 months of learning SQL Server.
T-SQL Tuesday #108 Learning non SQL Server technologies
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Malathi Mahadevan. Our topic comes during the PASS Summit, a SQL event filled with learning, networking, and the #SQL Family! So it is only fitting that our topic is regarding learning and education. Thank you Malathi for hosting this month and for the great topic!
The topic is to pick one thing that is not SQL Server that we want to or already know. How do we or did we learn this skill and how do we add it to our resume?
Hurray! I passed the 70-762 exam!
Hurray! I passed my 70-762 exam! Passing both the 70-761 and the 70-762 means I am officially a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Developing 2016 SQL Server Databases!On March 3rd I posted my spreadsheet and study guide to the 70-762 which I followed. I also posted prior to my test exactly how I studied. So if you want to see how I used the spreadsheet study guide or want to read about how I studied, you can use the links below and read those pieces. Likewise, if you want to read about why and who someone should become certified, I have created a post on that as well!
Why and who should become certified?
There are three camps of people I’ve met when it comes to discussing certificates in IT.
- Oh, that’s nice to have, but I’m indifferent otherwise. (95% of the people.)
- Oh, you are certified?! That’s amazing! I need to talk to you all about that! (3% of the people.)
- Oh… you are certified? So you’re one of those paper DBA’s huh? (Cue them throwing your resume in the trash.) (2% of the people.)
Certs can have a bad rap because there are many certs that you can achieve that hold little weight. Like when you complete a couple hour video training course that you pretty much need to just click through and at the end, you can pay money to have them issue you a cert.
How I studied for the 70-762 exam
Back in March I created a spreadsheet to help me track my studying for the 70-762 Developing SQL Databases exam and posted about some of my resources. I plan on taking the 70-762 on Monday, 2018-07-23. I wanted to share my experiences studying for the exam prior to taking it and the methodology to my studying. After the test on Monday I plan on posting about how my exam went (within the rules of the NDA) and I plan on making a few posts later about why and who should become certified.
My study guide to the 70-762: Developing SQL Databases
I couldn’t find a spreadsheet that would help track the topics, ETA, and other notes online, so I decided to compile all of my resources into a singular spreadsheet to help me keep track of studying and to help the community for those taking the 70-762. You can copy / make a copy of this and track yourself.
The tab Topic Resources has been taken from Daniel Calbimonte and his post on MSSQLTips. Huge thanks to him for taking the time to compile all of those resources on those topics!
Review of Itzik Ben-Gan’s Books
I’ll start by saying this isn’t a paid review nor do I have any association with SolidQ publishing.
T-SQL Fundamentals (third edition) was highly recommended as a read for the 70-761 exam along with his other two books, T-SQL Querying and Training Kit (Exam 70-461): Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012.
Looking at the three books, you can gather the fundamentals book is probably more base skill set and the exam is structured for obviously an exam. So are all three books worth a read? Which ones should you read and in what order?