Having only been honoured with my Data Platform MVP award in July 2017 this March was my first MVP Summit. For me, this is the reward for all the hard work and community contributions throughout the year and beyond. It’s an opportunity to rub shoulders (drink beer) with the Microsoft product teams, engineers and group … Continue reading My First MVP Summit
Moving On
The English Version It is with a heavy heart that I am announcing my departure from Purple Frog Systems. It has been just shy of 2 wonderful years with the Shropshire based company, but it is now time to move on to pastures new. I joined Purple Frog Systems in March 2016 following an intense … Continue reading Moving On
Azure Data Factory v2 Developer Interface Launched
Its finally here!! After being teased for nearly 4 months with all the great new functionality available in Azure Data Factory version 2 we finally have the tools to start developing it. Microsoft, it appears, have leap frogged my long standing request and feedback votes to support ADF templates in Visual Studio 2017 and gone … Continue reading Azure Data Factory v2 Developer Interface Launched
Azure Data Factory v1 & v2 Service Principal Authentication for Azure Data Lake
Sadly this post has been born out of frustration, so please accept my apologies from the outset if that comes across in the tone. That said, I imagine anyone reading it will empathise and will have come across the post while searching for an understanding of some inconsistencies when using service principals to authenticate against … Continue reading Azure Data Factory v1 & v2 Service Principal Authentication for Azure Data Lake
Using U-SQL Split to Handle Variable Width Datasets
Happy New Year folks and welcome back to work! I hope you had a nice break. 🙂 I decided to kick off the new year of blogging with something fairly simple following some support work I did helping out a friend in the community. The problem encountered was twofold when dealing with data in Azure … Continue reading Using U-SQL Split to Handle Variable Width Datasets
Controlling U-SQL Job AU’s with Azure Data Factory v2 Pipeline Parameters
This post came about really from me playing around with Azure Data Factory Version 2 (ADFv2) and trying to gain a better appreciation of why and how you can now use parameters and expressions in ADFv2 to control your pipelines. Below is the first thing I tested out and hopefully gives you a taster of … Continue reading Controlling U-SQL Job AU’s with Azure Data Factory v2 Pipeline Parameters
The Azure Icon Game
Can you name them all? If you've ever seen me at a community event you'll probably know that I like to warm up the crowd by playing the Azure Icon Game (as I've named it). When moving around the Microsoft Azure Portal you will be greeted my many graphics, some are obvious, some are strange, … Continue reading The Azure Icon Game
The Data Platform Community – 1 Year On
A lot can change in a year. This has been especially true for me and my involvement in the Microsoft data platform community. The evidence for the point comes in the form of my PASS Summit lanyard/badges. At the 2016 event I was a humble attendee visiting Seattle and the conference for the first time, … Continue reading The Data Platform Community – 1 Year On
My Data Journey So Far
For my first blog post on this clean new site lets start with something personal and reflective. Your career is a journey along a path. But unlike most journeys (with a SatNav) your career isn't defined from the start and the path often changes several times. Lots of metaphors can follow here regarding smooth roads, … Continue reading My Data Journey So Far
Welcome to the Blog of Paul Andrew 