To keep up to date with all the technologies in SQL Server, the DBA or developer who wants to stay ahead is faced with the struggle of constant learning. How do you keep up while avoiding information overload, unnecessary detours and dead-ends?
The SQL Server Stairways is our solution to this problem. Designed to smooth out even the steepest learning curve, each Stairway is a SQL tutorial series focused on a single topic and is arranged into no more than a dozen easily-navigable tutorials that we call 'steps'. Each step is the length of a typical magazine tutorial, and emphasizes practical, hands-on learning, with just enough background theory to help you understand the topic at a deeper level.
Using straightforward language and avoiding jargon and marketing babble, each Stairway tutorial series is designed to take you from zero knowledge of a particular SQL Server topic to a level of practical understanding that will allow you to start using that feature in a production environment. The learning gradient is steady and manageable, but also brisk. You won't be wasting time.
Happy climbing!
Azure SQL Hyperscale is a scale of the Azure SQL Database intended to scale to very large levels, up to 100TB for a database. This option sits next to the General Purpose and Business Critical tiers. It is described in the What is Hyperscale? document from Microsoft. This series is intended to teach you about […]
2025-08-25 (first published: 2025-08-22)
70 reads
Snowflake is a cloud data warehouse platform that runs on AWS, Azure, and Google Compute Platform. This series looks at the structure and setup of a Snowflake data warehouse.
2025-06-13 (first published: 2021-05-19)
3,834 reads
This stairway series is designed to teach you about the Azure Synapse Analytics cloud service.
2025-06-06 (first published: 2024-06-19)
550 reads
Containers are a lightweight way of building applications that run on a host. Similar to virtualization, the container is a virtual OS rather than a full machine. This stairway will walk you through the basis of containers using Docker for Windows and SQL Server inside of a container.
2024-07-28 (first published: 2019-07-06)
8,011 reads
AlwaysOn is a complex set of technologies that is often mis-understood. In this Stairway you will learn about the AlwaysOn technologies, how they fit into the High Availability stack, and how to make good use of them.
2024-07-23 (first published: 2014-06-25)
18,590 reads
This series looks at the Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature in SQL Server 2008+.
2024-06-26 (first published: 2016-11-23)
3,302 reads
This stairway series tries to help the reader become comfortable with server management objects (SMO). These objects are a programmatic way of accessing SQL Server functions and objects through an API from .NET. This series will help you learn the basics with practical applications for your work.
2024-01-20 (first published: 2023-11-30)
1,330 reads
Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) can be used in formulas or expressions to calculate and return information from data already in our Power BI models. This Stairway series serves as a progressive introduction to DAX within the context of Power BI, examining the functions, operators and values involved, and examining their operation in practice examples. As a part of introducing DAX functions and overall capabilities, the Levels of the series will also offer a wealth of practical exposure to Power BI features as a part of putting DAX to work in our data models and visualizations.
2024-01-16 (first published: 2011-08-09)
19,455 reads
2023-10-16 (first published: 2023-09-13)
1,267 reads
Automated testing is a way to ensure you can repeatedly examine your code as you make changes by running a series of tests. Since these are automated, you have the ability to execute all tests with one programmatic call rather than hoping a developer runs all tests. This also allows the effort of writing tests […]
2023-10-15 (first published: 2023-02-22)
984 reads
By Steve Jones
If you aren’t watching the Ignite keynotes today, then you might have missed the...
Short version You want to get this running as fast as possible. Do these...
By Steve Jones
Last week I asked you to write about SQL Server 2025 and what things...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The case for "Understanding our...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Specifying the Collation
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 has arrived!
I am dealing with issues on my SQL Server 2022 instance related to collation. I have an instance collation of Latin1_General_CS_AS_KS_WS, but a database collation of Latin1_General_CI_AS. I want to force a few queries to run with a specified collation by using code like this:
DECLARE @c VARCHAR(20) = 'Latin1_General_CI_AS'
SELECT p.PersonType,
p.Title,
p.LastName,
c.CustomerID,
c.AccountNumber
FROM Person.Person AS p
INNER JOIN Sales.Customer AS c
ON c.PersonID = p.BusinessEntityID
COLLATE @c
Will this solve my problem? See possible answers