23Oct 2019 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Passwords = A Good Thing

DevOps, Professional Development
Those my friends are, in my opinion, one of the single most wonderful things on earth, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Now, you may not like those. So, picture your own, special, favorite indulgence. Not a common indulgence either. Something truly lovely and special. Something important to you. Got it? Good. Now, I want you to equate that indulgence, whatever it might be, with the fundamental security of your systems. Let's imagine for just a moment, that you're developing a new system using the ElasticSearch database, one of the most popular data management systems on the planet right now. Did you know, by default, the basic and trial versions of ElasticSearch have security disabled? So, probably, if you're in development, you started with a trial version. If you just moved…
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03Sep 2019 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Techorama Netherlands 2019

SQL Server
You only have a few more weeks to sign up for one of my favorite events, Techorama. This year is the second time the event will be held in the Netherlands (it started out in Belgium). I'm very honored to get to say that I'll be speaking again this year. The reason I like the event so much is because of how it draws from pure developers, architects, data specialists and analysts almost equally. Techorama succeeds at getting all the people into the room that ought to be in the room. Then, Techorama makes it possible for all these people to share knowledge and understanding about the Microsoft stack. I have several different sessions, but the one I want to talk about at the moment is the one on SQL…
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08May 2017 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

General Notes on Security in Azure SQL Data Warehouse

Azure
I'm still learning about Azure SQL Data Warehouse (ADW, cause I'm lazy). ADW is a deceptively deep topic. Initially you think that it's just SQL Server, what's the big deal. Then you start to understand the underlying architecture and things get complicated. Then you begin to understand the implications of the architecture and things get down right arcane. However, I'd like to talk about some relatively easy concepts around security in your Azure SQL Data Warehouse. For lots more detail, see the excellent documentation provided by Microsoft. Firewall Security The single most important aspect of security in and around Azure is the fact that for the public facing aspects (and the database stuff is public facing), there is a built-in firewall. This firewall is enabled by default and actually can't…
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18Feb 2016 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Azure SQL Database Error

Azure
I was on SQL Cruise where I was scheduled to present a session on Azure SQL Database. I recorded all my demonstrations before we went to sea, but, I planned to attempt to try live demo's. Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, I got a unique error when I attempted to connect: Forced connection closes from remote host That's a partial message from the whole error. I don't have a good screen capture. I wasn't able to find anything on it through Ging searches, but this week I was at Microsoft for a training course on Azure. I asked the room. The rough answer is (paraphrasing): The IP address I was attempting to connect from is not is not on the approved list Interesting. I didn't realize there were blackout zones. The really…
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