Friday, July 23, 2021

23-07-2021 we'll take a look at SQL Server on Linux.

 






we'll take a look at SQL Server on Linux.

 

I'll show you how you can download and install SQL Server on a Linux virtual machine.

 

Run your SQL Server based apps inside of Docker Containers.And improve the performance of your applications with Columnstore,one of the many powerful features in SQL Server.

In March of this year, we announced that we are bringing SQL Server to Linux.

Today we're announcing that SQL Server on Linux is available in public preview.

The first thing I want to show you is how easy it isto download and install on Linux in under 60 seconds.

Here on my Macbook, I'm running a red hat enterprise Linux VMTo kick off the installation, I run Yum install mssql-server.

While that's installing, I'd like to tell you a little bit more about SQL Server on Linux.

The scope of the first SQL Server release on Linux is the relational database only.

Most of the key features of SQL Server 2016 will be included,such as Transparent data encryption,

Always encrypted, Row level security,In memory tables, Columnstore and more.

Looks like the installation completed.So now you can see that we can install SQL Server on Linux in under a minute.That'show easy it is to get installed on your own VM.

But you can also just grab a Docker image with SQL Server pre-installed.

Let's take a look at an example of a Docker based application

with SQL Server container.Let's first look at the application architecture.

First we have a voting application

which is a python-based application that registers a user's vote for either dogs or cats.

The vote is stored in the Redis cache DB.

And then a java worker app container

move the vote from the Redis cache DB to the SQL Server database.

And then a node-based application

displays the results to the user.

Now let's go back and Docker compose up our application.

Now that the application is up

we can bring up the voting application

and the results.

Let's go ahead and vote for dogs.

That will register the vote in the database and we can see the results.

Now lets take a look inside of the database and see what's happening.

To do that, I'll run a command in the command palette

to connect to a SQL Server database.

I've already pre casched a connection to my votes database

running my SQL Server container.

We can see that we are now connected down here in the lower right hand corner

and we can begin executing queries.

So here we can see that we have a vote for dogs which is B.

and we can update the vote to A.

And see that the vote has now changed from dogs to cats.

So you can see from this basic example that SQL Server operates just like any other SQL Server.

Even when it runs inside of a Docker container.

Now let me finish up by showing you one of the many powerful capabilities of SQL Server.

Columnstores stores data on disk and in memory

in a special order for fast access and better compression rates.

I'll run this simple job application.

And while it's running, i'll explain what it does.

First, it connects to SQL Server.

Then it drops a database if it already exists

and recreate a new empty database for us to insert data into.

Then it has a simple data generation routine

which inserts data into a products table

and has a price column that stores the price of objects.

In this case, we're inserting five million rows worth of data.

After the data is inserted, we'll run a typical select sum query

to sum up the price of all of the five million rows.

Then we'll create the clustered columnstore index to improve performance.

And we'll rerun the query to see the improvement in performance.

So at this point, we're inserting the five million rows into the table.

Now that the data has been inserted

we can see that the first query took 382 milliseconds to run

Now we'll add a Clustered Columnstore index

to the table to improve performance.

After the Clustered Columnstore index is added,

the query time is only seven milliseconds

So we can see that we got fifty times better performance

just on my Macbook and with only five million rows.

All I had to do was run a one-line T-SQL query to add the index.

The best part is that we just announced that all the programmability features

previously available in enterprise edition

are now available in all editions of SQL Server.

Both on Linux and on SQL Server 2016 FP1 on Windows

which we also just released today.

Hopefully this gives you a quick idea of how seamlessly SQL Server

fits into Linux and Docker.

It's SQL Server as you know it today, it's just native to Linux.

It works with your data and your favorite tools, application, frameworks and programming languages.

It's even easy to get.

So go grab the public preview at the link below.

We're looking forward to hearing your feedback

and answering your questions over on Stack Overflow.

 

How to Run a Successful Property Management Company

 Whether you are starting as a property manager or you’ve been running your company for many years, there is always room for improvement. After you get your property management enterprise up and going, surprising challenges are inevitable.


For example, you may need to manipulate numerous stakeholders, including landlords, unit owners, contractors, tenants, and much more. The list goes on.


However, as tough as it could be to successfully operate a property management company, it can also be exceptionally profitable if done correctly. 


Right here are some useful tips on a way to run a successful property management organization.


  1. Sort out the legal stuff first


It’s crucial to determine the right legal shape for your property management company. This will help you learn the taxes you’re responsible for, the necessary paperwork you have to file, and your level of personal legal responsibility.


Property managers may want to look into their business licensing options. Most property management companies are encouraged to opt for a limited liability corporation (LLC) or an corporation. Every choice comes with its very own pros and cons so you’ll need to do proper research, or consult a tax professional. Talk it over with your legal professional or CPA to determine the best option.


Subsequently, getting a suitable license that allows you to legally operate as a property manager in your state is a must. Each US state has its own licensing requirements for property managers. Make sure to consult a professional before getting started.

  1. Build a good team

A property management business company is only as good as its team. You cannot manage a couple of properties without the proper skills in your corner. Thanks to property management software, you don’t need to hire nearly as many people as you used to. Here are few of the essential members of a good property management team:


  • Accountant: It’s crucial to hire an accountant that specializes in real estate management because they’ll be familiar with the law. Your accountant will handle with your books, track profits and fees, provide tax strategies and applicable business advice. With a good accountant at your side, you’ll have no reason to fear the IRS.


  • Real estate attorney: A real property lawyer will protect you from any possible risks and make certain you stay out of trouble. They’ll additionally educate you about your company's legal duty, even supporting you to avoid legal responsibility and protect your assets.


  • Contractors: This includes contractors for landscaping, termite and pest control, HVAC services, locksmiths, painters, home inspectors, electricians, roof inspectors, pool carrier vendors, plumbers, and much more. It’s important to have close relationships with talented contractors in the area you service to help your clients. A great example, of this is Professional Property Management Of Northern Viriginia, who works tirelessly to work with only the best contractors in the area. 

  1. Price your services properly

Whilst pricing your services, you want to find the balance between profitability and competitiveness. Your costs should by no means be too low to the point where it’s hard to break even, and at the same time, your services shouldn’t be too luxurious either as that you may chase away able clients.


To determine the acceptable range for your pricing, don't forget to include the standard elements charges for your region, your level of expertise, and so forth. Right here are some of the things, that might affect your pricing:


  • Setup price: This is an as soon as-off price that’s intended to cover account setup charges.


  • Ongoing management prices: Because the name implies, this is a monthly price that your clients pay to cover each day costs like hire series, verbal exchange costs, doing inspections, and responding to upkeep requests. Most company's prices range approximately 5% to 10% of the clients’ month-to-month apartment income.


  • Leasing Price: This is a once-off charge that covers the value of advertising a vacant unit and finally getting a new tenant. It’s normally a percentage of the unit’s month-to-month rent amount.


  • Eviction fee: Because the call implies, this fee is designed to cover the time it takes to act as a middleman between the belonging’s owner and tenants.



  1. Create a marketing strategy


A business without an advertising and marketing approach cannot simply hope to grow beyond a few customers. An organized advertising and marketing strategy should include methods to search for and appeal to new customers via conventional and modern techniques.

Conventional marketing strategies encompass referral programs and phrase of mouth. You can additionally determine to join a nearby real property investment membership to meet investors and landlords.


As previously referred to, a properly optimized website site can be a profound advertising device, especially whilst paired with other online advertising channels like social media. Online advertising gurus point to FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn because they are the first-rate marketing channels for property managers.


But, starting a podcast is another greate avenue as it’s a high-quality manner to leverage popular voice media. It also facilitates applying search engine optimization to improve your website’ visibility on search engines like Google. That way, when a person searches for property management businesses in your area, your website is more likely to expose up on the first consequences web page.

  1. Take care of regular maintenance


The upkeep of your client’s properties are a mirrored image of your effectiveness as a property manager. Do not forget that prospective clients will use your past work as a reference and benchmark of your service.


It’s best to always respond on time, to restore and upkeep requests, and ensure those commonplace regions are in a mint situation at all times. This calls for you to conduct regular inspections and stick with a maintenance schedule that may include landscaping.


Wednesday, July 14, 2021

3 Reasons to Include Sustainability in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

 In the present digitalized era, sustainability has proved to be a crucial tool in digital marketing strategies. According to the online customers, it is essential to connect with the online companies and brands that share the same values as theirs. The business hubs are constantly looking for new ways to connect with their present and future customers. For this reason, business people are searching for new and upgraded marketing strategies to improve online business.

Include Sustainability in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Sustainability is in high demand among consumers. Sustainability in digital marketing services influences the buyer’s behaviour as consumers choose to invest their money in particular services that offer sustainability. When customers value this specific feature to such an extent, as a business person, it is equally significant for you to incorporate this robust feature in your Digital Marketing Services.

The blog will discuss the primary 3 reasons you must include sustainability into your online marketing strategies, focusing on the ways businesses can use their tools and programs in their communications.

Reasons to Include Sustainability into Your Digital Marketing Strategy

 

  •  The wellbeing of Our Planet

The inclusion of sustainability in the digital marketing strategy causes vital benefits to our Earth. Digital Marketing decreases carbon footprints, energy usage and pollution. Sustainability enables your business to act in an eco-friendly manner and boosts brand value and business marketing.

One of the primary purposes of sustainability is to maintain the longevity of the Earth. You can incorporate some nature-friendly strategies in your mission. You can use the digital medium as your marketing platform or conduct virtual events over in-person meetings. Your marketing features will express your efforts just by talking to your customers. A sustainable business strategy ensures your efforts to cross the set boundaries and reach consumers worldwide. When it comes to the topic of sustainability, you must execute an effective marketing plan in reality by including specific features for the welfare of our planet.

  • Attractive to the Young Customers

In today’s technologically upgraded century, the majority of digital consumers belong to the young generation. Digital businesses that lack sustainability reduce the number of consumers gradually. Young people belonging to Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2019) and Millennial (born between 1980 and 1995) lead the sustainability movement and head towards making a greener planet. Incorporation of sustainability in the marketing strategies makes sure that you will offer services to a significant section of the young customers.

Young generation people not only create a massive customer base, but these consumers also serve as the workforce. The young generation customers prioritize the environmental benefits, socio-economic responsibilities and generous efforts before choosing to support or work for any business. Whether you are an entrepreneur or an experienced business person, you need to include these features to boost your customer base. You need to focus on the social and environmental issues, including other sustainable values at the forefront, to grab the attention of more customers.

  • Enhancement of Business Longevity

The longevity of any business is dependent on your capacity to connect with your customers, both current and future. You may create a strong and beautiful bond with your audiences by sharing your values with them, and listening to their changing demand. The value of sustainability increases as this feature possesses the core value of the business brands that the consumers select for investment.

It would be best if you incorporate sustainability in your marketing strategies for permanent customer retention. Consumers worldwide express their preference for sustainable brands that make healthy decisions for the planet and its living creatures. You need to be committed to sustainability beyond the company barriers.

It is highly appealing to plunge your company into sustainable practices and values. This submergence reflects your attention and importance to all the changes and needs of your customers. A loyal and permanent customer base is the cornerstone of any successful and progressive business brand. You need to prioritize the values and demand of your customers to enhance the longevity of your company.

How to incorporate Sustainability into your Marketing Strategies & Communications?

Marketing strategies and communications comprise print materials, web content, ads, presentations and other public relation-oriented activities. Marketing Communication also includes brand awareness and packaging. The clothing industry is a terribly lesser sustainable industry in the world. Proper packaging and wise brand decisions are necessary to add sustainability to the marketing communications with customers.

You need to be confident about your sustainability plans and the consequences. You should be vocal about your sustainability efforts in the course of your marketing communications. You can share your journey towards the social and environmental goals of your company with the consumers. You should prioritize sustainability over anything in your business marketing strategies and talk to your audience about the role and relevance of sustainability in any business.

Today’s digital marketing strategy uses social media platforms, message marketing, automated emails, and live-streaming videos from different social platforms. Online marketing notably removes the conventional marketing strategies that have proved to be very harmful to our environment.

As a business person, you should offer your customers the scope to get in touch with your brand even after the marketing communications are over. You can continue a systematic communication process with your potential consumers in various ways, like arranging a virtual meet, connecting them to your company via social platforms, or encouraging them to attend most of your digital events.

If you are willing to successfully incorporate sustainability in your marketing strategies, you can move to a digital platform-based marketing strategy. You can share the latest updates concerning your social and environmental goals with your audiences.

To wrap up,

The blog has focused on the three fundamental reasons to add sustainability in your digital marketing strategies, emphasising how to incorporate sustainability in marketing communication. Suppose you are willing to include sustainability in your marketing strategy and want a sound suggestion

How Recurring Billing Has Boosted Online Subscription Business Efficiency

 With the word of recurring billing & invoicing, there is associated the concept of revenue and profit. As a member of the subscription business community, you need to think beyond this. Billing is the point of interaction with the customer. From invoice generation to successful transactions, you need cautiousness at every point.

Recurring Billing

When invoices used to be handled manually, human errors were the cause of destroying customer relationships. Automation helped to avoid such mistakes. Subscription billing offered many new options to the online business communities. Today, subscription billing has moved far beyond the conventions of online billing.

Even the customers are not satisfied with just one subscription model. They change their subscription type from time to time. They also demand advanced payment methods. To cope with this situation, smart recurring billing is your option. SaaS companies are working to fulfill this need, and you can find many subscription billing software that streamlines billing as well as payment processing.

What Is Smart Recurring Billing?

One of the biggest causes of customer annoyance for online billing and payment is payment failures. Many online billing platforms did not offer to cater to those customers who fail to pay the subscription fee on their first go. Dunning management is unequivocally an effective way to handle failed payments, but smart recurring billing has now taken the lead.

Through smart recurring billing, you can provide your subscribers with the option to retry to pay their recurring billing fee and to know how it benefits your business. You need to read this article till the end.

Better Customer Experience (CX)

When you plan strategies to offer customers a better experience with you, always put yourself in the customer’s shoes. From the customer’s perspective, he gets the bill, and he is ready to pay on time. He visits the link for online payment, but because of any reason, his payment fails.

He will be willing to retry, but if your simple billing software does not allow him, he will definitely be annoyed. The billing and payment process is already complex for a layman to understand. Also, his subscription is at stake.

Smart recurring billing enabling you to let subscribers retry to pay very helpful in these circumstances. If your SaaS recurring billing software provides your customers with customized invoices, different payment methods, and the option to retry to pay subscription charges, you enhance their spending power and CX as well.

Customer Retention

Smart recurring billing improves the CX, which is directly related to customer retention (CR). One of the major reasons for the involuntary churn is the failed payments. You opt for a robust recurring billing platform that minimizes the chances of payment failures. The customer churn will automatically decrease.  

Payment Failure ? Poor CX ? Customer Churn ? Revenue Leakage

Payment failure causes not only involuntary churn but also voluntary churn. The system cancels subscriptions for payment failures—voluntary churn. The hiccups in the payment process can annoy the customer, and he can leave himself—voluntary churn. So, shift your subscription business to smart recurring billing and improve customer retention rate.

Reduction in Revenue Leakage

As has been mentioned, payment failure leads customers to quit using your services or products—revenue leakage. By now, you would have realized that payment failures are interlinked with several factors that can directly affect your business.

Facilitating customers to timely pay for the subscription package that they use can save you from many issues that arise one by one in case of subscription payment failure. A well-integrated subscription billing software can save you from all this.

Now you know the role of smart recurring billing in improving the recurring billing business process. Other than using an appropriate platform for billing and payment, you can take the following tips to avoid the harm that payment failures cause:

  • Notify your customer every time before the deadline to pay the subscription fee. Even if the subscription charges are deducted automatically, your online billing and payment system must notify the customer so that he can deal with, e.g., card-related issues before the transaction for subscriptions.
  • Plan dunning because your tone matters the most at this phase. Even if you notified customers timely, there could be many other reasons for not paying in time. You have to be polite with the customer because it is your key to retain the customer in such conditions.

Businesses quickly evolved with the advent of automation. Recurring billing is a successful business model, but it is advised not to jump on the bandwagon. However, payment failures are one of the challenges for all subscription business companies.

Smart recurring billing has come up to be a satisfactory solution to minimize the chances of payment failure. SubscriptionFlow is one of the platforms where you can entertain your subscribers with minimal chances of payment failure.

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23-07-2021 we'll take a look at SQL Server on Linux.

  we'll take a look at SQL Server on Linux.   I'll show you how you can download and install SQL Server on a Linux virtual machi...