SQL Server 2022 is GA!
The big announcement at the PASS Data Community Summit 2022 was that SQL Server 2022 is now generally available. See the official announcement. My top 10 list of new...
2022-11-29
69 reads
James Serra's Blog
Attending and presenting at conferences
I have attended and presented at a ton of conferences over the years (see the entire list at Presentations | James Serra’s Blog). If you are looking to learn...
2022-11-10
20 reads
Microsoft Ignite Announcements Oct 2022
Announced at Microsoft Ignite were some new product features related to data platform and AI. Below are the ones I found most interesting: Azure Cosmos DB adds distributed PostgreSQL...
2022-10-18
33 reads
Data lake architecture
I have had a lot of conversations with customers to help them understand how to design a data lake. I touched on this in my blog Data lake details,...
2022-09-30
54 reads
Synapse database templates info and tips
I had previously blogged about Azure Synapse Analytics database templates, and wanted to follow-up with some notes and tips on that feature as I have been involved on a...
2022-09-13
38 reads
How to keep up with technology
(Side note: There is a “subscribe” button on the right side of my home page if you wish to receive my blogs updates via email as soon as they...
2022-09-12 (first published: 2022-08-29)
429 reads
Power BI guidance documentation
Recently there has been a number of great articles published on Power BI that I wanted to make you aware of that go beyond the features descriptions found in...
2022-08-29 (first published: 2022-08-09)
562 reads
Questions to ask when designing a data architecture
When I’m leading a full-day architecture design session (ADS) with a customer and the goal is to come up with a data architecture for them, I first start doing...
2022-08-08 (first published: 2022-07-26)
706 reads
Power BI as a enterprise data warehouse solution?
With Power BI continuing to get many great new features, including the latest in Datamarts (see my blog Power BI Datamarts), I’m starting to hear customers ask “Can I...
2022-07-20 (first published: 2022-06-30)
566 reads
Power BI Datamarts
As mentioned in my previous blog about the Microsoft Build event announcements, the biggest news was Power BI Datamarts. This is a new self-service capability included with Power BI...
2022-06-29 (first published: 2022-06-08)
496 reads
Blogs
Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
T-SQL Snapshot Backups on Availability Group Secondary Replicas
One of my favourite features of SQL Server 2022 was the T-SQL Snapshot Backups....
The Book of Redgate: Hours
By Steve Jones
I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of...
Forums
Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in SQL Server 2025: Fixing the Kitchen-Sink Search Procedure
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...
AI Experience Gap that we keep talking about
Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Experience Gap that we...
Question of the Day
ORDER BY alias
There is a table tmp_tab:
CREATE TABLE tmp_tab ( id int, val int );
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES (1, 1), (2, NULL), (3, 3), (4, 4), (5, 5);You want to order the rows ids by the following expression:
ISNULL(val, id) + 1Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct) See possible answers