Some of my greatest mistakes
You are never too experienced to make mistakes. An occasional dose of humble pie serves as a reminder to up our game.
2019-07-05 (first published: 2017-05-18)
10,533 reads
David Poole
- Interests: Badminton, Cycling and Music. Keen piano player.
Experiments with full text search
Would a crazy idea using full text thesaurus and phonetic keys actually have worked?
2019-03-26
2,275 reads
GDPR - A guide for the perplexed
If a picture paints a thousand words then can GDPR regulation be represented in diagram form? Could doing so make it easier to comply with the regulation by making it easier to understand?
2019-02-18 (first published: 2018-01-11)
4,960 reads
Soundex - Experiments with SQLCLR Part 3
Acknowledging fundamental design flaws lead to a more flexible, maintainable phonetic framework
2018-11-23 (first published: 2015-08-27)
3,834 reads
Auto-suggesting foreign keys and data model archaeology
If you can understand the data model then you can understand the intent of the application developers.
2018-07-06 (first published: 2016-01-26)
5,644 reads
The Power of the Data Model
A data model is far more powerful than simply a set of build instructions for DBAs. It can be used to shape business thought and actions for the benefit of all.
2017-02-14
2,044 reads
Bash for ETL pre-processing
People were doing ETL long before ETL packages were invented. Some of those facilities still have worth today
2016-08-15
6,685 reads
Data Quality - Addressing non-stated requirements
Producing a crib sheet for data quality drives a shared understanding of the data used to power the business.
2016-07-28
1,354 reads
RANDom traps for the unwary
The Books Online description of the RAND() function is only true from certain perspectives.
2016-05-09
2,763 reads
Getting ready for Hadoop
Before adopting Hadoop into your organisation there are a number of factors to consider. This article highlights some of the key points.
2015-11-23
6,418 reads
Blogs
The flight recorder: Replaying what an AI agent did on my SQL Server
By Arun Sirpal
“What exactly did it do on my server?” is the first question a DBA...
Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026
By James Serra
Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon...
Au Revoir for now
By Steve Jones
No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight...
Forums
Let's Talk Certifications
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The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Security Risks of...
The Empty Aggregate
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Empty Aggregate
Question of the Day
The Empty Aggregate
I have this table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerOrder] ( [OrderID] [int] NULL, [CustomerID] [int] NULL, [total] [money] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOWhat is returned from this code? (answers are for the sum and then the count)
SELECT SUM(total) AS sum,
COUNT(total) AS count
FROM dbo.CustomerOrder;
See possible answers