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: 2014-12-04)
17,000 reads
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.
2014-12-22
13,060 reads
This tip looks at some of the questions around attribute relationships in SQL Server Analysis Services, including why you need them, how to create them, and the common data sets involved.
2014-12-19
7,646 reads
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
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.
2014-12-17
8,467 reads
Kathi Kellenberger demonstrates how to start adding visual flair to your SSRS reports, using its impressive set of visual controls, ranging from basic charts to gauges, indicators, sparklines, and maps.
2014-12-16
7,115 reads
Considering that SQL Server 2014 Natively Compiled Stored Procedures are compiled into binary code, you may have asked yourself if it's possible to monitor statement execution. In this tip Daniel Farina explains how you can monitor SQL Server Natively Compiled Stored Procedures.
2014-12-15
6,974 reads
In this tip Aaron Bertrand uses SQL Server metadata queries to discover SQL Server views that have certain properties or use certain syntax.
2014-12-12
5,919 reads
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
Arshad Ali discusses how to use CTE and the ranking function to access or query data from previous or subsequent rows. He also shows you how to leverage the LEAD and LAG analytics functions to achieve the same result without writing a self-join query using CTE and ranking function
2014-12-10
8,382 reads
By ChrisJenkins
Do you spend so long manipulating your data into something vaguely useful that you...
By Steve Jones
It was neat to stumble on this in the book, a piece by me,...
Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day...
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In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('Steve', 'Stan')
Assume preview features are enabled. See possible answers