How I tackle disaster recovery
One of my special interests as an autistic person is understanding mechanical components of a computer, both analog and digital. In the olden days, we had devices known as...
2021-05-26
26 reads
Born SQL with Randolph West
A quick primer on binary and hexadecimal
A few years ago, I wrote that a CPU is “a hot mess of on-off switches.” There’s more to it than that when you get into the weeds of...
2021-05-31 (first published: 2021-05-19)
432 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #015: Automation
In February 2011, Pat Wright invited us to talk about Automation: So the topic I have chosen for this month is Automation! It can be Automation with T-SQL or...
2021-05-12
12 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #014: Resolutions
At the end of 2010, Sean McCown (blog | Twitter) invited us to talk about resolutions: Things like getting certified, or perfecting a process, or taking management classes, etc...
2021-05-05
14 reads
Ambling through undocumented DBCC commands may result in boredom
There comes a time when we heed a certain call. The call is to avoid dangerous undocumented DBCC commands in SQL Server, especially those that bypass built-in protections. I’m...
2021-04-28
16 reads
Calgary Data User Group with Deborah Melkin and Andy Yun
Next week on Wednesday is the Calgary Data User Group’s second event for 2021, and the second event as a member of Microsoft’s new Azure Data Community. Since last...
2021-04-21
16 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #013: What the business wants
Click here to read previous retrospective entries. From Steve Jones (blog | Twitter) in December 2010 comes the question “What issues have you had in interacting with the business to get your...
2021-04-15 (first published: 2021-04-14)
175 reads
Upcoming speaking engagements
The last time I presented a session was at the final PASS Summit in November 2020, so it is time to get back on the virtual conference trail again....
2021-04-07
12 reads
Zeroing out a transaction log file does not use zeroes
I’ve been doing SQLskills training recently, and Paul Randal (blog | Twitter) reminded our class that zeroing out a transaction log file does not use zeroes (0x00). Well, not...
2021-03-31
40 reads
What is a community advisory board anyway?
For those of us who have been involved in the Microsoft Data Platform community for a few years, the events of the last few months have been dramatic, culminating...
2021-03-24
22 reads
Blogs
Identity Columns Can’t Be Updated: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I’m not sure I knew identity column values could not be updated. I ran...
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
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
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Forums
Can someone please explain what happens?
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
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
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects:...
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 8KirinI run this code:
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG(
BeerID: BeerName )
FROM beer;
What are the results? See possible answers