Maintenance Windows
Is it better to ask forgiveness than permission? Some people take that approach to maintenance windows, but that isn't permissible in the cloud.
2021-04-05
200 reads
Cloud Computing
Google Cloud Certification for Microsoft Database Engineer
Introduction I recently passed the Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer certification exam, Professional Data Engineer Certification. It took me about five month to prepare for this, and I would like to share my thoughts of why I decided to take it on and how I prepared for it. At the moment, Google cloud (GCP) is […]
2021-03-15
9,855 reads
2021-03-08
1,567 reads
2020-11-20
140 reads
2020-11-03
138 reads
The Next Evolution of Big Blue
IBM is breaking up and Steve thinks back about the evolution of the company and where they might go from here.
2020-10-27
123 reads
Beating the Cloud Vendors
Can you run a system better than cloud vendors? You should know and be able to prove it.
2020-07-13
165 reads
Why Billing Will Be Part of Our Job
I am old enough to remember when many large corporations implemented chargebacks. Essentially, each internal department was charged for their usage of IT systems, similar to how we are charged in the cloud. It was a mess, and individual departments had to answer for excessive charges. I don't know that any department ever lost service, […]
2020-06-18
271 reads
What is Azure SQL Database Serverless?
I remember when the first SQL databases were available on Azure. The size limits and missing features made them impractical for most uses at the time. Fast forward 10 years and you can you create a terabyte database and take advantage of configurations like Hyperscale, Elastic Pool, and Managed Instances. You get automatic high-availability and […]
2020-06-13
741 reads
2020-06-02
193 reads
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward
By Steve Jones
This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...
dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts
You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)
By SQLPals
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...
Forums
Using CHOOSE()
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using CHOOSE()
Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping Secondary (Without Touching the Primary)
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping...
The DBA is Dead! Long Live the !
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The DBA is Dead! Long...
Question of the Day
Using CHOOSE()
We have this code that sets some status values and then queries them using the CHOOSE() function in SQL Server 2025.
CREATE TABLE Status
(
StatusID INT,
StatusDescription VARCHAR(20)
);
GO
INSERT dbo.Status
(
StatusID,
StatusDescription
)
VALUES
(0, 'Uncategorized'),
(1, 'Active'),
(2, 'Inactive'),
(3, 'Temp');
GO
SELECT CHOOSE(StatusID, 'Unknown', 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Temporary')
FROM Status;
When the SELECT runs, what is returned? See possible answers