Using Aliases in SQL Prompt
Phil Factor explores the role of table aliases, explaining when they are required, and their general purpose otherwise, the need for sensible naming of aliases, and how SQL Prompt handles them.
2020-01-20
Additional Articles
Using Calendars and Dates in Power BI
You can use a host of time-intelligence functions in DAX to calculate everything from simple year-to-date totals to moving averages and average opening and closing balances. In this article, Andy Brown shows how to model various scenarios with calendars and dates, and how to get around some of the issues you may encounter.
2020-01-20
A simple use case for Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server
In this article we look at different use cases for columnstore indexes like when performing SQL Server count * queries.
2020-01-17
Data Categorization for AdventureWorks using SQL Data Catalog
Josh Smith shows how to use SQL Data Catalog to perform a 'first cut' data classification for one your SQL Server databases, identifying all columns that are likely to hold personal or otherwise sensitive data.
2020-01-17
How to Complain Bitterly using SQL Data Generator
How to use reverse regex expressions in SQL Data Generator to fill a text column in SQL Server with fake, but very realistic complaints.
2020-01-16
Introduction to Gaps and Islands Analysis
T-SQL window functions simplify solving many complex queries. In this article, Edward Pollack demonstrates how the functions can be used to find gaps and islands in a dataset.
2020-01-16
Monitoring your Servers and Databases with New Relic Infrastructure and SQL Monitor
New Relic Infrastructure is a capable server monitoring tool but adding Integrations provides only 'bare bones' monitoring for SQL Server. Grant Fritchey argues that to "instrument" a complex system such as SQL Server, effectively, you also need a tool that is built specifically for this purpose.
2020-01-15
The 2020 Data Professional Salary Survey Results Are In.
We asked what you make, and 1,734 of you in 63 countries answered. Altogether, you made $170,753,936 this year. Damn, y’all are bringing home the bacon!
2020-01-15
Going Serverless with Azure SQL Database
Microsoft has a new virtual core offering of Azure SQL database called serverless and this offering optimizes the price performance tradeoff and simplifies performance management for databases with intermittent and unpredictable usage.
2020-01-14
The Need for a Data Catalog
In the event of a breach of personal data, any organization must produce proof that they understand what data they hold and where, and how it is being used, and that they have enforced the required standards for access control and security. To make all this possible, it is essential to build a complete model of the data and its lineage, and a data catalog is the first step in this process.
2020-01-14
Blogs
Blog a Day – Day 1: History of AI
By Vinay Thakur
it has been a year since i have not written much on the blog...
A New Word: on tenderhooks
By Steve Jones
on tenderhooks – adj. feeling the primal satisfaction of being needed by someone, which...
Ramblings about data communities and your contributions, no excuses
By DataOnWheels
I have been active in the data community throughout my career. I have met...
Forums
Ola Hallengren Index Optimize Maintenance can we have data compression = page
I have a quick question on Ola Hallengren Index Optimize Maintenance . Do we...
how do i map the "current" object entry in for each to one variable
hi, in an ssis for each loop over an object variable called MyListVariable, i...
Simulating Mercury’s Orbital Motion Using Pure T-SQL (NASA 2025 Dataset)
SQL Server is typically viewed as a transactional or analytical database engine. However, it...
Question of the Day
String Similarity I
On SQL Server 2025, when I run this, what is returned?
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY('SQL Server', 'MySQL') See possible answers