Learning pathway for SQL Server 2016 and R Part 1: Installation and configuration

Jargogled is an archaic word for getting confused or mixed up. I’m aware that there are lots of SQL Server folks out there, who are desperate to learn R, but might be jaRgogled by R. Now that R is in SQL Server, it seems like the perfect opportunity to start a new blog series to help people to splice the two great technologies together. So here you are!

First up, what do you need to know about SQL Server installation with R? The installation sequence is well documented here. However, if you want to make sure that the R piece is installed, then you will need to make sure that you do one thing: tick the Advanced Analytics Extension box.

You need to select ‘Advanced Analytics Extensions’, which you will find under ‘Instance Features’. Once you’ve done that, you are good to proceed with the rest of your installation.

Once SQL Server is installed, let’s get some data into a SQL Server database. Firstly, you’ll need to create a test database, if you don’t have one already. You can find some information on database creation in SQL Server 2016 over at this Microsoft blog. You can import some data very quickly and there are different ways of importing data. If you need more information on this, please read this Microsoft blog.

If you fancy taking some sample data, try out the UCI Machine Learning data repository. You can download some data from there, following the instructions on that site, and then pop it into SQL Server.

If you have Office x64 installed on your machine, you might run into an issue:

Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.15.0′ provider is not registered on the local machine

I ran into this issue when I tried to import some data into SQL Server using the quick and dirty ‘import data’ menu item in SSMS. After some fishing around, I got rid of it by doing the following:

• Uninstalling the Access 2007 Database Engine component, which was on the machine
• Installing the 64 bit version of the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable
• And then re-installing the Access 2007 Database Engine component, which I got from here

There are other ways of importing data, of course, but I wanted to play with R and SQL Server, and not spend a whole chunk of time importing data.

In our next tutorial, we will look at some of the vocabulary for R and SQL Server which can look confusing for people from both disciplines. Once you learn the terminology, then you’ll see that you already know a lot of the concepts in R from your SQL Server and Business Intelligence expertise. That expertise will help you to springboard to R expertise, which is great for your career.