Are Cubes Dead?
Is the idea of an Analysis Services cube something that is no longer relevant for modern data analysis? Steve thinks it might be.
2022-06-06
1,068 reads
Editorials
The Nightmare Letter
The GDPR may bring nightmare letters like the one linked to from the editorial.
2022-06-03 (first published: 2018-03-28)
275 reads
Production Subsets
Working with data in development or test environments can be challenging. This week Steve Jones asks how you might deal with the volume of data and whether you like subsets.
2022-06-01 (first published: 2014-08-22)
270 reads
Audit systems: a good idea or a mess to maintain?
Audit systems can be a good idea, but they can also be a mess to maintain.
2022-05-30 (first published: 2018-02-27)
367 reads
2022-05-28
219 reads
2022-05-27 (first published: 2018-02-08)
249 reads
It's Not Yours
We may talk about our databases, but hopefully most of us know we don't own the data.
2022-05-25 (first published: 2018-01-17)
238 reads
It's the Engineers
The staff that build your systems are more important than your choice of technology.
2022-05-23 (first published: 2018-01-08)
248 reads
Moving on but not far
During my technical career, I’ve changed companies several times. I even worked as an independent contractor for three years. One thing I have never done before was switch departments and roles within one company. That’s about to change in a couple of weeks as I move from Simple Talk Editor and DevOps Advocate in Marketing […]
2022-05-21
111 reads
Job Interviews: What is Normalization?
Do you know how to answer normalization questions in an interview? Steve Jones gives you a few ideas and recommends you brush up on your knowledge.
2022-05-20 (first published: 2018-01-11)
660 reads
Blogs
Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
T-SQL Snapshot Backups on Availability Group Secondary Replicas
One of my favourite features of SQL Server 2022 was the T-SQL Snapshot Backups....
The Book of Redgate: Hours
By Steve Jones
I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of...
Forums
Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in SQL Server 2025: Fixing the Kitchen-Sink Search Procedure
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...
AI Experience Gap that we keep talking about
Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Experience Gap that we...
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) + 1Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct) See possible answers