Additional Articles


External Article

Practical PowerShell Unit-Testing: Mock Objects

Pester allows you to automate the testing of PowerShell scripts. It can test the output of a function as you develop it by validating simple data (scalars) and arrays, and allows you to focus on the one function you want to test by using 'mocking' to fake all the other functions and Cmdlets.

2014-12-23

7,027 reads

External Article

The Big Database Freeze

When a hospital’s mission-critical database fails at Christmas, disaster for the hospital – and its hapless DBA – seems certain. With less than an hour to spare before catastrophe, can the DBA Team save the day? This is a fictionalized true story.

2014-12-23 (first published: )

17,000 reads

Technical Article

Using the MERGE Statement to Perform an UPSERT

The term UPSERT has been coined to refer to an operation that inserts rows into a table if they don’t exist, otherwise they are updated. To perform the UPSERT operation Microsoft introduced the MERGE statement. Not only does the MERGE statement support the UPSERT concept, but it also supports deleting records. Greg Larsen discusses how to use the MERGE statement to UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE records from a target table.

(1)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2014-12-22

13,060 reads

External Article

Questions About T-SQL Transaction Isolation Levels You Were Too Shy to Ask

Every time you access a relational database to make a query, you have an important decision to make: What is the appropriate isolation level for your query? If you get this wrong, the consequences can be serious. Deadlocks, Dirty reads, Non-repeatable reads, or poor performance. We're in luck, because Robert Sheldon once more answers those questions that are awkward to ask in public.

2014-12-18

12,150 reads

Technical Article

Introduction to Azure SQL Database Scalability

One of the primary advantages of Platform-as-a-Service solutions offered by Microsoft Azure is the ease with which scaling can be implemented. While SQL Database facilitates both vertical and horizontal scaling approaches, scaling it out is considerably more challenging. In this article, we will provide a high-level overview of both vertical and horizontal scaling methods available with Azure SQL Database.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2014-12-17

8,467 reads

External Article

Cloud Identities versus Federated Identities in Office 365

Identities, the 'accounts' by which Cloud and Web users identify themselves, are tricky to manage, and tiresome for the users. Cloud services such as Office 365 have their main use in large organisations and so there have to be easy ways for system administrators to maintain them. Microsoft provide three alternative strategies; Cloud identities, Synced identities and federated identities. What is the differences between them, and which should you choose?

2014-12-11

8,211 reads

Blogs

New article – migrating from a named instance

By

Do you have a case where you have a named instance you'd like to...

Cleaning Up My Blog's SEO and AEO with Claude in GitHub Copilot

By

I’ve been running this blog on Hugo for a long time, and like most...

Using the SIGN() Function: #SQLNewBlogger

By

I was trolling the docs and noticed the SIGN() function. I have never written...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Admin Rights for Everyone

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Admin Rights for Everyone

Kerberos Authentication for Aurora PostgreSQL: Mapping AD Groups to Database Roles

By Arvind Toorpu

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Kerberos Authentication for Aurora PostgreSQL:...

RegEx Functions I

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item RegEx Functions I

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

RegEx Functions I

Which of these RegEx functions need compatibility level 170 in SQL Server 2025?

See possible answers