The very definition of Data is the factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation. [Source] The data that I work with on a daily basis. The life blood of a company. Without data, no company can expect to make intellectual decisions that will affect their outcome positively. Without…… Continue reading Data
Sending out Emails from your database
To send an email in SQL Server, all that’s required is a fairly simple call of a stored procedure created by Microsoft. EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients = ‘sherpa@sherpaofdata.com’, @body = ‘The stored procedure finished successfully.’, @subject = ‘Automated Success Message’; Now, there are several more parameters you can use. Below are some of my favorites that…… Continue reading Sending out Emails from your database
Comparing Email Configuration in SQL Server and Snowflake
Today, I want to talk about all the effort that goes into setting up the ability to email in SQL Server and Snowflake. First is our old friend – SQL Server. I’ll leave this one to the experts at Microsoft. As has been the case over the last few years, they have some great documentation…… Continue reading Comparing Email Configuration in SQL Server and Snowflake
Simplifying Data Masking in Snowflake with Tags
In our last post, we discussed data masking and setting it up for specific columns. Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I deal with hundreds of tables with several columns in each on a daily basis that truly need data masking. If I have to go through and set up a masking policy one…… Continue reading Simplifying Data Masking in Snowflake with Tags
Enhancing Data Privacy in Snowflake
The premise behind data masking is fairly simple – make it so that only certain people can see the data in a certain column. For example, social security numbers or credit card numbers probably shouldn’t be seen by everyone who has access to your database. I like to set it up as follows: (Obviously, this…… Continue reading Enhancing Data Privacy in Snowflake
The Power of Memoizable Functions in Snowflake
If you’ve been working with data for several years like I have – mostly using the SQL language – then I have a term for you that other languages, like JavaScript or Python, have had for a few years. The term is “memoizable” and it means, in a nutshell, to remember. A memoizable function caches…… Continue reading The Power of Memoizable Functions in Snowflake
Checking Out The Snowflake Packages
When working with one of the many modern computer languages that use libraries, one of the many things to be aware of – as a developer – is the version of the libraries available for your usage. Since there are multiple languages in Snowflake that use libraries, let’s go over how to check out the…… Continue reading Checking Out The Snowflake Packages
When you have a really bad morning in Snowflake
This week, I want to talk about something we’ve all done at least once – especially before our first cup of coffee in the morning. Yes, that’s right – dropping tables and databases. So we have our table from last time still existing in our database: We’re trying to get rid of a table from…… Continue reading When you have a really bad morning in Snowflake
Getting New and Old Columns to a Table
In my last post, we worked out how to change the data type of a field if it already existed and was found to need changing. This time, I want to add a fresh, new column to an existing table. In SQL Server, I would be doing something like the following. ALTER TABLE dbo.TestTable ADD…… Continue reading Getting New and Old Columns to a Table
How to Efficiently Change Data Types in Snowflake for Optimal Performance
When working with data, I usually have an idea of what type of data I will push into a field. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it is decided to change the type of data allowed in the field. Today, I want to show how that’s done in Snowflake. I will start out working with a simple…… Continue reading How to Efficiently Change Data Types in Snowflake for Optimal Performance
Odd things found when working with data
Sometimes, you’ll find all sorts of craziness when you’re working with data. Especially if you don’t expect there to be any craziness. Let me show you what I mean by a story of what I had happen just this week. In mapping some data from one database to another, I was asked to do the…… Continue reading Odd things found when working with data