I have not posted in some time. That has not been intentional. I had an idea well over a month ago that I began working on. I loved the idea, it was so fun to explore deeper. As I kept digging. The idea kept growing and growing. It had everything I…

In the past couple of years, I have learned that time too easily gets away from me. I tend to get lost in a problem and lose track of time. It was not uncommon for half of the day to be gone and progress not where I thought it should be. Once I was…

Many of us technical folks are on teams with 3 maybe 4 or more different skill sets. Not all of which are technical in nature, some more people focused, others may focus on statistical analysis, perhaps skills that are focused on art and graphics. It…

I remember when I was first getting into the field of software development. Ready to soak up all the knowledge from my new colleagues and the challenges I was facing down. I was going to learn it all leaving nothing left on the table. I worked my…

It has been a while since I have contributed to this blog. Am I mad about it? Not in the slightest. But, in not writing I have learned something about myself. I am a creature of habit... SHOCKING! We often talk about what we can do to make ourselves…

With all this data landed, how about some fun and interesting stats from the data set? Top 5 Constructors with podium finishes Top 5 Drivers with Podium Finishes

With my first ETL complete, I want to provide additional details on the steps I took. Then reflect on what I would do differently next time. First, a more detailed look at the steps I took: Collect data, as CSV files, from the data source Scan CSV…

The final step in the ETL process is to load the transformed data into the target datastore. For this example, I have created a landing database on the same SQL Server, but this final target could be anywhere data can be stored. Given that much of…

With landed data and the first pass at type analysis completed. It is time to take a better look at the current state of the data. Since this data set is quite small and I was on the edge of my SQL knowledge I performed this manually. Creating a…

As discussed in previous posts (ETL and Extracting with Bulk Insert), the first step in the ETL process is to land the data. Once landed in SQL Server, it is best practice to never assume the landing schema will be the final target schema. Since this…

Much like web developers will create an API endpoint that performs a specific function. DBAs have a similar tool in the toolbox, a stored procedure. Much like a single API endpoint, a stored procedure is a reusable piece of script that can be exposed…

With the CSV dataset landed in SQL server the next step is to understand what type of data is in the dataset. While this can be done manually, we are developers why not perform these tasks programmatically? To be successful in this step of the…