Stairway Series

Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata

Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata

  • Stairway

In addition to the data that our clients and customers store in a database, there is a tremendous amount of meta data, 'data about data', that describes how the database is set up, configured, and what the properties are for the various objects. This stairway aims to demystify and explain how you can query and use this meta data to more effectively manage your SQL Server Databases.

5 (3)

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2016-07-15

4,398 reads

Technical Article

Stairway to U-SQL

  • Stairway

As Microsoft continues to expand the Azure platform, they have enhanced its ability in ways that are quite different from what we've come to expect from SQL Server. Learn about the new language from Microsoft, U-SQL, designed to work with Data Lakes and Big Data in Azure.

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2016-06-07

6,359 reads

Stairway to SQL Server Extended Events

Stairway to SQL Server Extended Events

  • Stairway

Erin Stellato, a Principal Consultant with SQLskills.com, explores the use of Extended Events as a diagnostic data collection tool or SQL Server. She describes how to define efficient low-overhead event sessions that exploit fully the vast number of events, as well as the powerful filtering and data collection options, offered by this new event collection infrastructure. She also demonstrates simple techniques to analyze event data and identify and troubleshoot the causes of poor SQL Server performance, such as long-running queries that consume vast amounts of CPU and I/O resources. It is time to embrace Extended Events and understand all that it has to offer, and Erin's stairway is the perfect place to start.

4 (1)

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2015-12-01

5,620 reads

Stairway to SQL Server Security

Stairway to SQL Server Security Level 7: Security Across Databases with Cross-Database Ownership Chaining

  • Stairway Step

Sometimes you need to reach outside a database and access data and objects from multiple databases, which raises some security issues and increases the complexity of data access. In this stairway level, you’ll learn about cross-database ownership chaining so that you can reach across database boundaries securely.

4.67 (3)

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2024-05-08 (first published: )

10,870 reads

Stairway to Advanced T-SQL

Stairway to Advanced T-SQL Level 3: Understanding Common Table Expressions (CTEs)

  • Stairway Step

A CTE is a temporary result set defined by a simple query, and is used within the execution scope of a single INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or SELECT statement. In this article we will explore how to define and use CTE's.

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2024-04-03 (first published: )

6,058 reads

Stairway to Columnstore Indexes

Stairway to Columnstore Indexes

  • Stairway

SQL Server 2012 and later offer a very different type of index from the traditional b-tree, the in-memory columnstore index. These indexes use a column-based storage model, as well as a new 'batch mode' of query execution and can offer huge performance increases for certain workloads. But how are they built, how do they work, and why do they manage to have such a dramatic impact on performance? In this stairway, Hugo Kornelis explains all, with his usual mix of concise description and detailed demonstration.

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2015-01-22

11,336 reads

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Question of the Day

Adding Features During a SQL Server 2022 Upgrade

I have a SQL Server 2016 SP3 instance that I want to upgrade to SQL Server 2022. I don't have replication installed, but I want to enable this on SQL Server 2022. Can I add replication during the in-place upgrade?

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