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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

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Scala and Apache Spark in Tandem as a Next-Generation ETL Framework

Scala and Apache Spark might seem an unlikely medium for implementing an ETL process, but there are reasons for considering it as an alternative. After all, many Big Data solutions are ideally suited to the preparation of data for input into a relational database, and Scala is a well thought-out and expressive language. Krzysztof Stanaszek describes some of the advantages and disadvantages of a scala-based approach to implementing and testing an ETL solution.

2017-06-12

4,658 reads

External Article

How to partition data in Tabular SSAS

Partitioning data is a standard SQL Server administration practice. Partitions enable independent administration of different slices of data. When a SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) tabular data model is developed and processed, data is read from the source system and loaded into the tabular data model configured in In-Memory processing mode. Every time the model is processed, the entire data set may not require re-processing. Only certain slices of data containing changes may require re-processing which can be achieved by partitioning data into logical slices. In this post, Siddharth Mehta looks at how to partition tables in Tabular SSAS.

2017-06-08

2,832 reads

External Article

Comparing SSIS Catalog Contents Using DBFit Framework

When you are doing the rapid deployment of an updated SSIS project, there are a number of things you have to check to make sure that the deployment will be successful. These will include such settings as the values in environment variables, Package parameters and project parameters. The DbFit test framework turns out to be ideal for the purpose of doing final checks as part of a deployment process, as Nat Sundar demonstrates.

2017-06-07

3,586 reads

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Question of the Day

Getting the Average

I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database. 

salesperson commission
Brian       12
Brian       16
Andy        7
Andy        14
Andy        21
Steve       20
Steve       NULL
All the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson. 
SELECT SalesPerson
     , AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
 FROM commission
 GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve?

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