Heading to That Conference
I’ve been working with Ryan Booz a bit more and as we’ve talked over the last few weeks, he has asked me a few times if I’ve booked travel...
2023-06-16
26 reads
Blog Posts
Masking Columns in Azure SQL and SQL Server: Safeguarding Sensitive Data
Information security and privacy are key in today’s data-driven world. Sensitive data needs to be protected from unauthorized access. With column masking in SQL Server and Azure SQL, you...
2023-06-16 (first published: 2023-06-01)
363 reads
Using Data Masker on Chinese Surnames
A customer had a question recently on masking Chinese characters. I thought that was interesting, so decided to test this out. This is a short post on using SQL...
2023-06-16 (first published: 2023-05-26)
170 reads
Avoid “Constants” in T-SQL
Here we look at a common query "anti-pattern" that can create performance problems - and how you work around it.
2023-06-14
410 reads
Introduction to SQL Server Query Store
Introduced with SQL 2016, Query Store was, probably without doubt, the most anticipated and talked out new feature. In this post we'll just take a brief look at it,...
2023-06-14 (first published: 2023-05-31)
627 reads
Microsoft Announcement: Microsoft Fabric
Yesterday at Microsoft Build, a significant announcement took place—the introduction of Microsoft Fabric, which is now available for public preview. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, went as far...
2023-06-14 (first published: 2023-05-31)
637 reads
Why Aren’t You Monitoring SQL Server
I repeat the phrase “If you aren’t monitoring it, you can’t measure it” all the time. Through my IT career, this has been a constant. If you don’t have...
2023-06-14
11 reads
Executing Queries Using Always Encrypted
In this post we’ll look at how you interact with data that is encrypted using Always Encrypted. The examples here will show how you run queries from SSMS, in...
2023-06-13
39 reads
Across the Water Again
I’m in the UK again, for my second trip this year. This time I have no commitments for speaking or presenting anything. I’m in town for a Marketing get-together...
2023-06-12
20 reads
Build announcement: Microsoft Fabric
The HUGE announcement at Microsoft Build yesterday was Microsoft Fabric (see Introducing Microsoft Fabric: Data analytics for the era of AI), now available in public preview. I have been...
2023-06-12 (first published: 2023-05-24)
535 reads
Blogs
Automatic Index Compaction
By ReviewMyDB
Index maintenance has always meant nightly jobs and a window you have to defend....
The Goldilocks problem – Materialized Views
I’m sure you’ve all heard the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but...
Monday Monitor Tips: Virtual Machine Usage and Cost
By Steve Jones
One of the things I’ve been requesting for a number of years is cost...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
SQL Server Still Wins
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Still Wins
DBCC CHECKDB Limits I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item DBCC CHECKDB Limits I
Question of the Day
Getting the Average
I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.
salesperson commission Brian 12 Brian 16 Andy 7 Andy 14 Andy 21 Steve 20 Steve NULLAll the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
, AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
FROM commission
GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve? See possible answers