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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

External Article

Core Database Source Control Concepts

Sometimes, it isn't the technicalities or details of database source control that people find difficult, but the general concepts and workflow. In this article, taken from Robert Sheldon's book 'SQL Server Source Control Basics' , he takes a step back from the details to explain the whole purpose of database source control and the most important operations within source control such as versioning, branching and merging.

2017-03-21

5,188 reads

External Article

Using Power BI in a Hybrid Environment

Many organizations are taking advantage of the benefits of cloud computing such as lower capital expenditures and increased agility, while still maintaining data in on-premises data stores. This paper describes best practices for security, networking, and component architecture for building a hybrid business intelligence (BI) environment by using a combination of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises data sources.

2017-03-20

4,239 reads

External Article

SQL Server Bulk Insert Row Terminator Issues

We often need to import data into SQL Server from a file. Sometimes unwanted end of line characters are part of the source file and these can create issues when importing the data. One of the ways to avoid this issue is to use SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), but it doesn't always make sense to use SSIS for simple operations. Rahul Mehta explains that he uses BULK INSERT sometimes faces issues with Line Feeds and Carriage Returns. In this post, Rahul shows some examples and explains how to fix the issue.

2017-03-17

3,572 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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