Randolph West

Randolph West is the Microsoft Docs content lead for SQL Server on Linux, and SQL migrations. A former Microsoft Data Platform MVP who has worked with SQL Server since the late 1990s, Randolph solves technology problems with a focus on SQL Server and C#. You can also see Randolph acting on the stage and screen, or doing voices for independent video games.

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Blog Post

Git forked

Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day job, I certainly didn’t expect to write this many blog posts about Git. I don’t...

2026-02-23 (first published: )

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Blogs

Identity Columns Can’t Be Updated: #SQLNewBlogger

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I’m not sure I knew identity column values could not be updated. I ran...

Rolling Back a Broken Release

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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

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You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...

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Forums

Can someone please explain what happens?

By skeleton567

I have mentioned this several times over several years.  Can someone please help me...

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT) returns null when nothing is found instead of 0

By tim8w

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Component) AS Found FROM tblComponents WHERE(Component NOT LIKE '%[a-z]%') AND(LTRIM(RTRIM(Component)) = 'GM13622')...

Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects: The Fabric Modern Data Platform

By John Miner

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects:...

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Question of the Day

Creating JSON III

In a SQL Server 2025 table, called Beer, I have this data: 

BeerIDBeerName
1Becks
2Fat Tire
3Mac n Jacks
4Alaskan Amber
8Kirin
I run this code: 
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG(
    BeerID: BeerName )
FROM beer;
What are the results?

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