Properly Persisted Computed Columns
Paul White walks through a new trace flag in SQL Server 2016 designed to yield better execution plans (and performance) for queries involving computed columns.
2017-06-20
4,841 reads
Articles
Statistics in SQL: Kendall’s Tau rank correlation
Statistical calculations in SQL are often perfectly easy to do. SQL was designed to be a natural fit for calculating correlation, regression and variance on large quantities of data. It just isn't always immediately obvious how. In the second of a series of articles, Phil factor shows how calculating a non-parametric correlation via Kendall's Tau or Spearman's Rho can be stress-free.
2017-06-20
3,513 reads
Help for DBAs Who Support SSIS…
SSIS Catalog Compare helps DBAs work with their SSIS project configurations and catalogs, deploying changes from environment to environment.
2017-06-19
1,199 reads
Scoring Outliers with R
What is normal? More to the point, what is abnormal? We will look at using R to score outliers in a typical monitoring dataset.
2017-06-19
4,158 reads
2017-06-16
2,616 reads
Use T-SQL to Find Folders Using the Most Disk Space
Your SQL Server drives are running out of disk space and you want a way to quickly tell which sub-directories are taking the most space - here's how to do it with T-SQL.
2017-06-16
4,950 reads
Setting up R in SQL 2016 – Avoiding Pitfalls
Setting up R in SQL 2016 proved to be trickier than expected, but here is how to avoid the frustrations.
2017-06-15
2,331 reads
Questions About SQL Server Collations You Were Too Shy to Ask
Of course we all like our colleagues to think that we know everything there is to know about SQL Server Collations. However, the truth is that it is a rather complicated topic to fully understand and the cost of getting collation wrong can be great. If only one could ask certain questions on forums or at conferences without blushing. Help is at hand, because Robert Sheldon once again makes the complicated seem simple by answering those questions that you were too shy to ask.
2017-06-15
3,969 reads
Setting Variables in Calling T-SQL Code While Using sp_executesql
In this tip, Greg Larsen shows you how to set variables in your calling T-SQL code when using sp_execute sql.
2017-06-14
4,088 reads
What is normal? Finding outliers with R
How do you currently set alerting thresholds? What is normal? And more importantly, what is truly abnormal? We will explore these questions.
2017-06-13
1,869 reads
Blogs
The flight recorder: Replaying what an AI agent did on my SQL Server
By Arun Sirpal
“What exactly did it do on my server?” is the first question a DBA...
Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026
By James Serra
Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon...
Au Revoir for now
By Steve Jones
No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight...
Forums
Let's Talk Certifications
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Let's Talk Certifications, which is...
The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Security Risks of...
The Empty Aggregate
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Empty Aggregate
Question of the Day
The Empty Aggregate
I have this table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerOrder] ( [OrderID] [int] NULL, [CustomerID] [int] NULL, [total] [money] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOWhat is returned from this code? (answers are for the sum and then the count)
SELECT SUM(total) AS sum,
COUNT(total) AS count
FROM dbo.CustomerOrder;
See possible answers