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Featured Contents

From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline

Cláudio Tereso from SQLServerCentral

Learn how to get started with an MCP server that can query your SQL Server database.

SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About

Terry Jago from SQLServerCentral

Another fun article for America's Independence Day using SQL Server's spatial features.

How to stop AI hallucinations in enterprise RAG systems (a complete guide)

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

From the Air Canada chatbot lawsuit to the infamous Chevy dealership pricing fiasco, this article breaks down the six real reasons RAG systems fail in production – and the five architectural patterns high-performing AI teams use to make them trustworthy, grounded, and production-ready.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Five Ways Redshift Serverless Quietly Eats Your Budget

epivaral from SQL Guatemala

It is Friday, the queries are running, and nobody is watching the bill. That is the whole charm of Redshift Serverless: you stop thinking about nodes and resizes. It...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - A Career of Memories

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

Annabel retired from Redgate Software this week. Across most of my career at Redgate, I’ve participated in many events, some we hosted, some we sponsored. At most of these...

The Definitive Guide to DAX: Business Intelligence for Microsoft Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Excel

Site Owners from SQLServerCentral

Now expanded and updated with modern best practices, this is the most complete guide to Microsoft’s DAX language for business intelligence, data modeling, and analytics. Expert Microsoft BI consultants Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari help you master everything from table functions through advanced code and model optimization.

Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):
	Independence Day 2026
In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.
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)

Getting the Average

I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.

salesperson commission
Brian       12
Brian       16
Andy        7
Andy        14
Andy        21
Steve       20
Steve       NULL

All the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.

SELECT SalesPerson
     , AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
 FROM commission
 GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO

What average commission is calculated for Steve?

Answer: 20

Explanation: Steve has two rows: 20 and null. The TRY_PARSE() function will return a null for the None value, and the SUM() function ignores NULLs. So the average is 20. Ref:

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.

SQL Server 2017 - Administration

ALAMAT BCA KCP Ampera Tlp:08218154393 - WA:08218154393 Gedung Aurum, Jl. Ampera Raya No.37, RT.8/RW.2, Cilandak Tim., Ps. Minggu, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 12560

SQL Server 2019 - Administration

ALAMAT BCA KCP Mayestik Tlp:08218154393 - WA:08218154393 Jl. Kyai Maja No.77, RT.12/RW.3, Gunung, Kec. Kby. Baru, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 12120

Editorials

Is Fabric a Reliable Service or a Ripped Resource? - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Fabric a Reliable Service or a Ripped Resource?

I Want to Use My Brain - Comments posted to this topic are about the item I Want to Use My Brain

Spending Time in the Office - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Spending Time in the Office

What is the Cloud? - Comments posted to this topic are about the item What is the Cloud?

Article Discussions by Author

SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About - Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About, which is is not currently available on the site.

SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values - Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values

BIT_COUNT I - Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT I

Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level 5 of the Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level 5 of the Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments

Multiple Values Inserted - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Values Inserted

Extreme DAX: Take your Power BI and Fabric analytics skills to the next level - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Extreme DAX: Take your Power BI and Fabric analytics skills to the next level

SQL Server 2022 - Administration

ALAMAT KONTAK BCA KCU SCBD Tlp:08218154393 - WA:08218154393 Equity Tower, Ground Floor, Unit D & Lantai 8, Unit E, Jl. Jenderal Sudirman Floor 9, RT.5/RW.3, Senayan, Kec. Kby. Baru, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 12190

SQL Server 2022 - Development

locking down agent for new user on our dev machine - hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs on our dev machine. i stood up a db there for him and will make sure his rights are on that db only. how can i give him rights to set up and run agent jobs but with the constraint that […]

Finding 'bad' characters - Hi All I am trying to find 'bad' characters that users might type in. My query is finding them as expected, but the results include records that I think my query should not return. Here is my query select NOTES , ascii(left(NOTES ,1)) from trip with(nolock) where (patindex('%[^ !-~]%' collate Latin1_General_BIN, NOTES ) > 0 […]

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