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Hidden Heroes

A few weeks ago I was in Bletchley Park, at the facility where the Allies decoded and broke many of the German Nazi messages in World War II. It's quite a facility and museum, and I hope to go back. I was distracted that day and didn't get a lot of time to enjoy the exhibits and really learn more about what happened there.

I was there for our Redgate 2026 Company Kickoff and as a part of that, two different executives in our company shared their stories of people who had worked there. What was interesting is that until we planned this event, these two people had no idea that the people they knew had been a part of the effort to end World War II at Bletchley Park, which can be considered as one of the birthplaces of computing.

They were some of the hidden heroes of World Way II.

Our executives drew a parallel to our customers, notably the DBAs we work with. These are often hidden heroes in their organizations, toiling away, getting things done, keeping systems running, without the recognition or gratitude they might get if their efforts were more widely broadcast.

That might be a bit of a stretch. However, many of us who work on database systems are doing essential work that our organizations depend on. If we do a poor job, many people complain. If we make mistakes, (usually) lives aren't lost, but profits can be. Often no one knows our names, we don't get a lot of thanks for databases working well, and we have high expectations from our customers.

Many of us know that data is critical for most organizations today. Many in management today are acknowledging this as well, at least to investors. I don't know if they'll ever start to truly appreciate data professionals who build software and manage systems with kudos and compensation. That might not be a step they're willing to take since many other departments might claim to be just as important since will also be working with data in some way.

Perhaps we will remain the hidden heroes in today's organizations.

 

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
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 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Identities and Sequences I

When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Fun with JSON II

I have some data in a table:

CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    birth_date DATE
);

-- Step 2: Insert rows  
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');

If I run this query, how many rows are returned?

SELECT t1. AS row,
       t2.*
FROM OPENJSON(
     (
         SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
     )
             ) t1
    CROSS APPLY OPENJSON(t1.value) t2;

Answer: 12

Explanation: The inner query combines all the data into 1 row. The OPENJSON() with the SELECT inside will break this into 4 rows, one for each row of data. The cross apply takes the value and then splits each of those into its own row. Each column in the table (3 of them) gets broken into a row. With 4 rows, this is 12 rows returned. Ref: OPENJSON - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/functions/openjson-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver17

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

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Windows logins for users migrated from DomainA to DomainB - Hi, I have a SQL Server instance where users connect to via Windows Authentication, so for each user there is a row in sys.server_principals with (as example) "DomainA\JohnDoe". Recently a lot of users were migrated to DomainB (same forest) using the ADMigration wizard. Although I haven't created a new "DomainB\JohnDoe" login, this user is still […]
SQL Server 2019 - Development
how to write this query? - Hi everyone I asked this earlier but the desired outcome is a bit different this time so I am starting a new post.  I would like to transform the source table into the desired outcome format.  How can I do this? Desired Outcome: Sample Data: drop table if exists #temp1 create table #temp1 ( report_run_time […]
would it be so terrible to install ssms on a few user desktops? - Hi, ssms is free here.   I can think of other reasons to do this but i would like to install ssms on the desktops of a FEW users who already know, or have the aptitude to learn sql.   and are willing to be limited to very small "governed" datsets. We have excel sprawl from 2 […]
Editorials
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I'm thinking about submitting some articles - I've written some documentation on using different Markdown types of files on GitHub. It's a series of documents. Some of them are long, but others are short. Anyway, what I don't know is if I should just submit them as separate articles or if they would qualify as a Stairway. Would someone with SQL Server […]
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Article Discussions by Author
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How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases - Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases
Upgrading Admin Queries - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries
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SQL Server 2022 - Administration
XACT_ABORT being set to ON by web services - We have two "identical" instances of an ASP.NET web service (or so I have been told), that are connecting to databases that are also reasonably identical, running on separate instances of SQL Server 2022. For some reason, XACT_ABORT has been found to be set to ON with one of the web services, but not with […]
 

 

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