Let’s Talk About The Cloud
I’m launching a new initiative called the Community Circle Cloud Conversation Club (c5 for short). It’s going to a panel discussion lead by experts on cloud technologies. I’ll be...
2020-05-29
18 reads
The Scary DBA
Database Fundamentals #25: Referential Integrity
If you have been reading through all my fundamentals posts and following along, you have built a small sample database, loaded it with data, and learned how to retrieve...
2020-06-10 (first published: 2020-05-26)
317 reads
Can We Get Row Counts After Execution?
The general idea for this question came from dba.stackexchange.com: could we, and if we can, how, get row counts after execution. I was intrigued with the idea, so I...
2020-06-01 (first published: 2020-05-18)
615 reads
Find Indexes Used In Query Store
One of the most frequent questions you’ll hear online is how to determine if a particular index is in use. There is no perfect answer to this question. You...
2020-05-25 (first published: 2020-05-11)
444 reads
Database Fundamentals #24: More Filtering Data
In this Database Fundamentals post we continue discussing the functionality of the WHERE clause. We started with the basics of the logic using things like AND, OR and LIKE...
2020-05-04
120 reads
How Does The CHOOSE Command Affect Performance?
Questions absolutely drive my blog content and I really liked this one: how does the T-SQL CHOOSE command affect performance. On the face of it, I honestly don’t think...
2020-05-11 (first published: 2020-04-27)
651 reads
The Very Best of Extended Events
Over the next couple of months, I’ll be putting on a number of different sessions teaching about the tools supplied by Microsoft, for free, that can help you when...
2020-04-20
248 reads
Redgate Community Circle
I am very excited to announce that I will be taking my paid precon content “Tools for SQL Server Query Performance Tuning” and presenting it for free. This is...
2020-04-23 (first published: 2020-04-16)
180 reads
Develop Resiliency
We are all going through some tough times. It’s tougher for some more than others. Now is the time when you have to work on being resilient, and it...
2020-04-13
23 reads
What Prevents You From Securing Your Servers?
Reading about how hackers are using SQL Server instances that are exposed on the internet AND have weak passwords to work into systems, I’m sitting here wondering why. I...
2020-04-06
78 reads
Blogs
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)
By SQLPals
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...
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...
Forums
Let's Talk Certifications
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Let's Talk Certifications
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