Query Exercise: Find the Best Time for Maintenance
If we’ve gotta take the database down for maintenance – perhaps a version upgrade, perhaps upgrading our own code, maybe scaling up the hardware – when’s the best time to do it?
2024-02-07
Additional Articles
Resolving the MERGE statement attempted to UPDATE or DELETE the same row more than once error
I'm receiving the following error when attempting to run a T-SQL MERGE statement: "Msg 8672, Level 16, State 1, Line 123. The MERGE statement attempted to UPDATE or DELETE the same row more than once. This happens when a target row matches more than one source row.
2024-02-05
Optimized locking in Azure SQL Database
I don’t think I’ve ever had a great impression of Azure SQL Database as a place for production applications. In its early days, it was missing several important features (like data compression). While that hole has been plugged, there are still other limitations and differences you should be aware o
2024-02-02
Gracefully Handle Errors using TRY CATCH Logic in SQL Server Stored Procedures
Learn how to capture errors in SQL Server stored procedures and gracefully handle errors using Try Catch coding in your stored procedures.
2024-01-31
PowerShell Dynamic Parameters and SQL Server
Have you ever been in a situation that you want to call a cmdlet or a function with a parameter that depends on a conditional criteria that is available as a list? In this article I will show a technique where you can use PowerShell Dynamic Parameters to assist the user with parameter values.
2024-01-29
SQL WAITFOR Command to Delay SQL Code Execution
One of the most rarely used commands in SQL is the WAITFOR command. It is one option to invoke a delay in program execution in absentia. Because it is sparsely used, how and where it can be applied when needed is often forgotten. For example, we could use this to mimic a user response or input or perhaps to collect data at certain intervals during the day.
2024-01-26
Code Visibility: Browsing through Flyway Migration Files
If you can convert a SQL file to HTML, then you can inspect your Flyway migration files in a browser. This is especially useful if your SQL is color-coded with the same conventions as it was in your IDE. It is even better still if your browser can allow you to scan through many files, moving from file to file with a single click. This article will demonstrate how to do this with a few PowerShell scripts.
2024-01-24
Understanding the Importance of Data Lineage in Modern Data Management
Data lineage is a component of modern data management that helps organizations understand the origins, transformations, and movement of their data. It is like a road map that shows us where our data has been, how it has changed, and where it is going, just like tracking the journey of a package:
2024-01-22
Introducing the MongoDB Document
MongoDB is a document database. As such, the data is stored as individual documents. A document is a data structure made up of one or more field/value pairs.
2024-01-19
Two-Dimensional Interval Packing Challenge
Packing intervals is a classic SQL task that involves packing groups of intersecting intervals to their respective continuous intervals. In mathematics, an interval is the subset of all values of a given type, e.g., integer numbers, between some low value and some high value.
2024-01-17
Blogs
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Forums
Lots of FKs
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Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data in Excel – Over the Internet
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data...
Can You Let Go of Determinism
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Question of the Day
Lots of FKs
In SQL Server 2025, what are the most outgoing and incoming FK references a table can have?
See possible answers