Paul Randal

Paul S. Randal (Paul@SQLskills.com, twitter @PaulRandal) is a world-renowned speaker, author, and instructor at SQLskills.com; he is also the CEO. He worked on the SQL Server Storage Engine team at Microsoft from 1999 to 2007, writing DBCC CHECKDB/repair for SQL Server 2005 and with responsibility for the entire Core Storage Engine during SQL Server 2008 development. Paul is an expert on disaster recovery, high availability, SQL Server internals, and database operations, and is a regular presenter at conferences worldwide. He owns and runs the company with his wife, Kimberly L. Tripp, and in their spare time they like to seek out odd-shaped bottom dwellers at remote dive sites around the world!
  • Interests: Doing anything with my wife, Kimberly Tripp: Sailing Scuba diving World travel Hiking Naval history Model building

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

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

EightKB 2026

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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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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;

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