Mike Byrd

Former rocket scientist and USAF Fighter Pilot -- now a SQL Server geek. Past opportunities include free-lance technical writer for PC Magazine, Senior Software Manager for government sponsored munitions effectiveness committee, and IT Director for Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (9 years), Currently senior database consultant for several companies. Presenter at many SQL Saturdays in US, Europe, and Australia. Ideal job is sproc and query performance tuning or TSQL instruction

Specialties
SQL Server performance tuning; database (OLTP & OLAP) architecture; trouble-shooting; teaching TSQL (Basic through Advanced).

Video presentations (for local SQL Server user groups or SQL Saturdays) can be found at http://usergroup.tv/videos/category/speaker/mike-byrd

Looking only for part-time or short-time opportunities -- either performance tuning or TSQL training.
  • Interests: Water skiing, boating, tennis, Sudoku and KenKen puzzles

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Blogs

Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026

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Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon...

Au Revoir for now

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No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight...

Goodbye, Microsoft

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A few years ago I took a new job at Microsoft, working as a...

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Forums

Let's Talk Certifications

By Grant Fritchey

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Let's Talk Certifications, which is...

The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular

By Pablo Echeverria

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Security Risks of...

The Empty Aggregate

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Empty Aggregate

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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]
GO
What 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