This article dives into a fun (and interesting!) strategy for widening fixed-width columns in SQL Server, to reduce downtime, risk, and runtime at the time when a column’s data type needs to be changed.
2025-09-12
I recently resolved an issue where a query pulling data from the last 30 days would time out due to the table’s size and the lack of a supporting index. Creating a supporting index is possible, but not ideal; it will be very large and may not be useful for most queries and use cases. I wonder how I could implement a filtered index that follows time and is always limited to the last n days.
2025-09-10
This article looks at using the FP-Growth algorithm from Python to mine data in SQL Server.
2025-09-08
2,778 reads
Introduced in SQL Server 2025 CTP 1.3, the PRODUCT() function acts similarly to SUM(), but multiplies values rather than adds them. It is an aggregate function in SQL Server and therefore operates on a data set, rather than on scalar values.
2025-09-08
This article shows how you can easily create connections in your Power BI workspace that use Identity Authentication to connect to your data.
2025-09-05
4,215 reads
The advantage of using triggers is that the same processing can occur regardless of where or how the data has been inserted, updated or deleted. In this article, we look at several examples of where and why triggers could be useful along with an example use case.
2025-09-05
In this article, we’ll revisit the dimension models we created. We wrote the entire SQL statement for the dimension by hand, and the dimensions themselves were very rudimentary; they lacked a surrogate key and there were no audit columns (such as insert date and update date). We’ll show you how we can expand the dimensions using Jinja, but also how we can minimize development effort by baking reusable patterns into the Jinja code.
2025-09-03
Page splits are an often-overlooked performance killer in SQL Server. In this article, we take a forensic look at how serial inserts differ from mid-table inserts, revealing why inserting rows out of order causes hidden page splits, increased IO, and fragmentation. Using a wide-column table, we demonstrate both scenarios and decode their impact with page-level analysis.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-05)
2,575 reads
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-04)
664 reads
TEXT, NTEXT, and IMAGE columns have been deprecated for nearly two decades, yet they still silently haunt many SQL Server environments. This article explains their hidden limitations with practical demos and shows why migrating to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) is critical for modern performance, maintainability, and future upgrades.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-06)
2,741 reads
By Vinay Thakur
Transparent Data Encryption(TDE): TDE was initially introduced in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition; this...
By Steve Jones
Only a little break for me. I’m actually heading to Las Vegas today for ...
By Steve Jones
I have a presentation on finding balance in your career that got quite a...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The day-to-day pressures of a...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item This Week's AI Trust Problem...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Migrate SSRS Reports to PowerBI...
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which can be used with the BIGINT data type?
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