Articles

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Handling Graphs in SQL

Many practical database problems can be tackled more simply and intuitively by graphs or networks, which in this sense are graphs in which attributes can be associated with the nodes and edges. It is a natural way to study relationships within the data. SQL databases aren't the easiest way of doing it, but it makes sense where the scale permits it. Because of the range of graphs and techniques, some Graph theory is unavoidable before you get stuck into the code, and who better to introduce graph databases than Joe Celko?

2017-03-29

5,270 reads

External Article

Encrypting SQL Server: Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) encrypts the data within the physical files of the database, the 'data at rest'. Without the original encryption certificate and master key, the data cannot be read when the drive is accessed or the physical media is stolen. The data in unencrypted data files can be read by restoring the files to another server. TDE requires planning but can be implemented without changing the database. Robert Sheldon explains how to implement TDE.

2017-03-24

5,410 reads

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The Empty Aggregate

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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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]
GO
What 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