Frank and I are honored to share an interview with Bob Ward (@bobwardms)! It was an awesome show – check it out!
Notable Quotes
On playing the “plague or pollen” game. (02:30)
Regarding sportsball… (05:30)
Virtual is the new norm. (06:30)
Bob and Azure (07:30)
Frank caught Bob in person at Microsoft Ready (08:15)
On sharing code…(9:30)
Bob on SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters (11:00)
… and PolyBase (12:30)
“Keep the data where it lives, access it through the language you’re familiar with.” – Bob on PolyBase (13:48)
Regarding Synapse (14:48)
…even for AS/400… (18:20)
PolyBase as an incremental migration strategy… (19:30)
COBOL, and more COBOL, and Y2K (20:30)
“Buck Woody (@buckwoodymsft) works with me…” – Bob Ward (21:00)
An aside about NFL Football teams and rivalries. (23:00)
We all miss baseball. (23:50)
“Did you find data or did data find you?” (25:00)
How Bob was recruited by Microsoft 26 years ago (26:45)
Anna Hoffman… (28:15)
Bob’s Book: SQL Server 2019 Revealed (31:00)
“So this Bob Ward guy… he’s kinda a big deal…” – Frank (32:45)
“I have people like my wife to keep me humble.” – Bob (34:00)
“There’s always somebody smarter…” – Bob (34:45)
“The Silverlight apocalypse…” (35:30)
“When I’m not working, I enjoy ____.” (36:30)
Some Good News (37:30)
A Quiet Place (38:15)
“I think the coolest thing in technology today is ____.” (38:45)
Bob started at Microsoft in 1993. (40:15)
“There’s no way somebody is going to put a SQL Server in the cloud.” (42:00)
FranksWorld.com (42:40)
On remote training (44:00)
“I look forward to the day when I can technology to ____.” (45:30)
“IoT-ness” – Bob, circa 2020 (46:40)
“Share something different about myself.” (48:00)
“We’re all screwing up!” (49:30)
Grace is Greater, by Kyle Idleman (50:20)
Bob on LinkedIn (51:30)
aka.ms/bobwardms (51:45)
aka.ms/sqlworkshops (52:30)
Tom Clancy series (53:00)
Sherlock Holmes series (54:00)
Sherlock – BBC (54:45)
“John Krasinski is a great Jack Ryan.” – Bob (58:00)
Hi Andy,
We are in 2021 now, two years since Polybase was unveiled by Microsoft. Do you see any adoption of Polybase?
I’m structuring an ETL from DB2 to SQL Server and it’s something that is going to stay in the long term. I’m afraid that Polybase would not be maintained and maybe SSIS would be better.
What do you think?
Hi Francesco,
That’s a fair question. I see enough blogs and social media about PolyBase to glean people are using it. I personally know very few people who are using PolyBase, but I attribute that to the fact that I mostly work in SSIS and ADF. I do not know enough about the platform to offer an informed opinion about PolyBase as a data integration / engineering solution. I recently re-shared an older post about the viability of SSIS, though. I noted “it’s been more than two years or so, and SSIS is not dead.” https://andyleonard.blog/2019/07/ssis-is-not-dead/
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