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SQLServerCentral Editorial

Economics of AI: What is the Real Cost to Profit?

  • Editorial

Artificial intelligence is everywhere: It’s in our tools, our workflows, our marketing pitches…and increasingly, in our bottom lines. But a thought-provoking article published recently on the AI bubble asks a far more sobering question: What’s it really going to cost to profit from AI? Many people will roll their eyes and say, “Isn’t that obvious? […]

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2025-11-08

124 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Docker Advice for SQL Server in Production

  • Article

Introduction Nowadays, with the widespread adoption of microservices across major companies, using Windows Server to host SQL Server remains the gold standard. However, there are still certain scenarios—or even specific environments—where deploying SQL Server in containerized setups using the Docker engine becomes necessary. In this article, I will offer practical tips based on my hands-on […]

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2025-10-27

5,363 reads

SQLServerCentral Editorial

I Love Editorials

  • Editorial

Why do I love editorials, I can hear you asking. The answer is simple. It's all about opinions. I have opinions. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them. I'm flying home from Hong Kong after visiting a Redgate customer. They are doing amazing work.. It's so cool getting to see how people are solving […]

(1)

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2025-10-18

80 reads

External Article

Schema Design Basics for Power BI

  • Article

You have a Power BI project that generates real-time reports for an inventory management system that uses SQL Server. You are aware that Power BI performance is heavily influenced by how your data is structured in SQL Server but don’t have a clear understanding of how to optimize your SQL data structure for Power BI. In this article, we look at different ways to structure the data and tables to help improve Power BI query performance.

2025-10-13

SQLServerCentral Editorial

Technological Dinosaurs or Social Dinosaurs?

  • Editorial

You're going to have to bear with me on this one because my thoughts aren't fully formed. As I'm sure I've mentioned, I'm a little elderly (and you thought I was going to talk about radios). As such, I've seen the death of a few technologies. I may not have shared this widely, but my […]

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2025-10-11

221 reads

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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) + 1
Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct)

See possible answers