Kevin3NF

Kevin Hill is a career SQL Server DBA living in Dallas, TX. His specialities include HA/DR, Best Practice configuration, Performance tuning and teaching new and accidental DBAs
  • Interests: Cycling, family, sci-fi, DBA stuff

Blog Post

SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances

Old Reliable Still Matters If you’ve been around SQL Server for a while, you’ve heard of Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs). They’ve been part of SQL’s high availability toolbox since...

2025-09-19 (first published: )

210 reads

Blog Post

SQL Server Availability Groups

Flexibility and Scale at the Database Level When SQL Server 2012 introduced Availability Groups (AGs), they changed the HA/DR game. Unlike Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs), which protect the whole...

2025-09-10

23 reads

Blog Post

SQL Server Backups: The Basics

If you’re responsible for a SQL Server instance, you need working, consistent backups. Not just a .bak file here and there, but a plan that runs automatically and covers...

2025-08-20

30 reads

Blog Post

SQL Server Maintenance Plans

If you’re a DBA, sysadmin, IT manager, or Accidental DBA, you’ve probably seen SQL Server’s built-in Maintenance Plans. They live right there in SSMS under the “Management” node, quietly...

2025-08-15 (first published: )

426 reads

Blogs

In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026

By

I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...

EightKB 2026

By

EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...

The FinOps Lifecycle: From Budgeting to Reporting

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Working in DevOps long enough teaches you two universal truths: That’s exactly why I...

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Forums

VS Code, Unresolved References.

By mjdemaris

Hi all, I just started using VS Code to work with DB projects.  I...

Fun with JSON II

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fun with JSON II

Changing Data Types

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changing Data Types

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Question of the Day

Fun with JSON II

I have some data in a table:

CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    birth_date DATE
);

-- Step 2: Insert rows  
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');
If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT t1.[key] AS row,
       t2.*
FROM OPENJSON(
     (
         SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
     )
             ) t1
    CROSS APPLY OPENJSON(t1.value) t2;

See possible answers