Outsourcing Security
Companies may look to outsource security in order to take advantage of experts' skills at a lower price. What will that mean for data professionals?
SQL Database Management Survey
Win one of two $50 Amazon vouchers by entering our database management survey. We’re finding out more about how SQL database professionals are doing backup and recovery, using cloud services and more. Answer the short survey for a chance to win.
Ten Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started Using tSQLt and SQL Test
The tSQLt framework is a great way of writing unit tests in the same language as the one being tested, but there are some 'Gotchas' that can catch you out. Dave Green lists a few tips he wished he'd read beforehand.
Pair Programming
Today Steve Jones talks about pair programming and when it might make sense for data professionals.
Find out which SQL Server instance is consuming most of the CPU
We have a number of SQL Server hosts with multiple SQL Server instances. From time to time we have CPU issues, but we are not sure which instance is causing the issue. How do you find which SQL Server instance is causing CPU pressure on machine with multiple SQL Server instances? Check out this tip for ideas on how to find the correct SQL Server instance which is causing CPU pressure.
Database Security Survey
A database security survey for a CS student. If you can spare a few minutes, I know he'd appreciate it.
Trade-offs
When working on a project, you have to make trade-offs. Unfortunately, some managers don't realize this. Steve Jones says we need to help them understand that doing things the right way, and working with trade-offs, makes for better systems.
Meredith Ryan: DBA of the Day
Meredith Ryan – DBA at the Bell Group –was elected by judges and the SQL Server community as the Exceptional DBA of 2012. So who is Meredith, and how did she become a DBA? What makes her exceptional at her work? Simple-Talk sent Richard Morris to investigate.
IT is Looking Good
The forecast for IT work is growing. That's good for those of us working in the field.
Rewrite the Coding Rules
If we rewrite the coding rules, will software be more secure? Steve Jones thinks it might and that we should be constantly looking to change the techniques, patterns, and skills we have.
Blogs
Automatic Index Compaction
By ReviewMyDB
Index maintenance has always meant nightly jobs and a window you have to defend....
The Goldilocks problem – Materialized Views
I’m sure you’ve all heard the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but...
Monday Monitor Tips: Virtual Machine Usage and Cost
By Steve Jones
One of the things I’ve been requesting for a number of years is cost...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
How We Handled a Vendor Retry That Loaded Twice in Snowflake
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How We Handled a Vendor...
Cognitive Coverage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Cognitive Coverage
Question of the Day
Getting the Average
I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.
salesperson commission Brian 12 Brian 16 Andy 7 Andy 14 Andy 21 Steve 20 Steve NULLAll the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
, AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
FROM commission
GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve? See possible answers