What does SQL NULL mean and how to handle NULL values
This tip will help you understand what NULL means and different ways to handle NULL values when working with SQL Server data.
2024-07-08
Additional Articles
Choosing Between the Lakehouse and Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
Microsoft Fabric is a new centralized, AI-powered cloud data platform hosted by Microsoft. It combines several services of the existing Azure Data Platform – such as Azure Data Factory – with Power BI, while also introducing new services.
2024-07-05
Prevent Duplicate Records in SQL using Filtered Index
In this article, I share how an SQL Server filtered index solved the problem of preventing duplicates for new rows in a table.
2024-07-03
Concepts and Issues in Test Data Generation
Data generation is the science and art of providing data for database development work that is as realistic and controllable as possible. The skills of generating realistic data are an essential part of being a database developer. It is important: you need plenty of data of exactly the right type, size and verisimilitude
2024-07-01
Build Chatbot with Large Language Model (LLM) and Azure SQL Database
In this article, we look at how to enable a large language model (LLM) to answer questions based on data stored in Azure SQL Database.
2024-06-28
Two Tweaks for Faster Backups with Ola Hallengren’s Scripts
Ola Hallengren’s free maintenance solution is widely used as a replacement for SQL Server maintenance plans. It’s a more powerful, flexible tool for backups, corruption checking, and index & statistics updates. If you’re using it for backups, there are two quick, easy changes that can dramatically reduce your nightly job runtimes.
2024-06-26
Effective Strategies for Storing and Parsing XML in SQL Server
XML is a common storage format for data, metadata, parameters, or other semi-structured data. Because of this, it often finds its way into SQL Server databases and needs to be managed alongside other data types.
2024-06-24
Query Exercise: Beat ChatGPT at Finding Good Question Times
What are the best days of the week and times of the day to post a question at StackOverflow.com?
2024-06-21
SQL Server TRY CATCH, RAISERROR and THROW for Error Handling
Learn about SQL Server error handling using TRY CATCH, RAISERROR, and THROW for stored procedures, triggers, and user-defined functions.
2024-06-19
The CHECK() Constraint
One of the many ways a relational table differs from the file structures used by pre-relational storage systems is that the tables, rows and columns can have constraints on them. This allows you to reduce the types of bad data that can be loaded into your tables.
2024-06-17
Blogs
Upgrading SQL Server Containers on the Laptop
By Steve Jones
I don’t have SQL Server installed on my laptop. In an effort to keep...
How to Find Expensive Queries in Amazon Redshift
Slow-running queries can degrade your Redshift cluster’s performance and lead to increased costs. Identifying...
The Notification Trap: How Input Fatigue Is Killing Deep Work in Tech
By gbargsley
If you've been here before, you know this blog is usually about SQL Server,...
Forums
SQL 2019 instance with AG, across 2 Windows 2016 OS servers - OSin-place upgrade
Hi all Can I get some perspective from the community please on performing in-place...
How Long is a Long I/O?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Long is a Long...
T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL...
Question of the Day
How Long is a Long I/O?
In SQL Server 2025, a long I/O is recorded in the error log with message 833. How long much an I/O request be outstanding before this message is written to the log?
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