Data Warehousing Tip #5 – Use surrogate keys
My fifth data warehousing tip is to always use surrogate keys for your dimension and fact tables.
Surrogate keys are keys...
2019-02-07 (first published: 2019-01-18)
3,081 reads
Error : DBCC could not obtain a lock on this object because the lock request timeout period was exceeded
DBCC CheckDB failed with error “DBCC could not obtain a lock on this object because the lock request timeout period...
2019-01-18
1,353 reads
Cool Stuff in Snowflake – Part 3: SPLIT and FLATTEN
I’m doing a little series on some of the nice features/capabilities in Snowflake (the cloud data warehouse). In each part, I’ll highlight something that I think it’s interesting enough...
2019-01-17
91 reads
3 Key Points from My Upcoming Talk, “DevOps: What, Who, Why, and How?”
Next week, I’m giving a free webcast for Redgate on DevOps fundamentals. DevOps is something I am a big proponent of for database administrators, developers, and company leaders. The...
2019-01-17
23 reads
When the query plan hash is deceptive
When you’re querying the plan cache, you need to know the four primary objects: the query hash, query plan hash,...
2019-01-17
773 reads
Audit SQL Agent Jobs
One probably seldom thinks of the SQL Agent jobs scheduled on the SQL Server instance - unless they fail. What if the job failed because something was changed in...
2019-01-17
222 reads
Audit SQL Agent Jobs
One probably seldom thinks of the SQL Agent jobs scheduled on the SQL Server instance – unless they fail. What if...
2019-01-17
1,012 reads
Getting Parameters Out From a Stored Procedure–#SQLNewBlogger
Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as...
2019-01-31 (first published: 2019-01-16)
3,760 reads
Database modelling in a post-SSMS world: dbForge Studio
A few months ago, Microsoft announced that SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) will no longer include the visual Database Diagrams...
2019-01-16
242 reads
Multi-server scripts with SSMS using SQLCMD mode
SSMS is the most common tool used by SQL Developers or DBA’s but unfortunately there are some features that are...
2019-01-30 (first published: 2019-01-16)
3,239 reads
Blogs
The flight recorder: Replaying what an AI agent did on my SQL Server
By Arun Sirpal
“What exactly did it do on my server?” is the first question a DBA...
Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026
By James Serra
Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon...
Au Revoir for now
By Steve Jones
No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight...
Forums
Let's Talk Certifications
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The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Security Risks of...
The Empty Aggregate
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Empty Aggregate
Question of the Day
The Empty Aggregate
I have this table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerOrder] ( [OrderID] [int] NULL, [CustomerID] [int] NULL, [total] [money] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOWhat is returned from this code? (answers are for the sum and then the count)
SELECT SUM(total) AS sum,
COUNT(total) AS count
FROM dbo.CustomerOrder;
See possible answers