Database Performance Transparency
Describes the benefits of publishing instance performance metrics including a script to generate HTML-based Performance Snapshot.
Going Solo
This editorial was originally published on Mar 20, 2007. It is being republished as Steve Jones is on vacation. Today Steve Jones talks about going into business for yourself, and reminding you it's not as simple as it might seem.
Rebuilding SQL Server indexes using the ONLINE option
As each year goes by the uptime requirement for our databases gets larger and larger, meaning the downtime that we have to do maintenance on our databases is getting smaller and smaller. This tip will look at a feature that was introduced in SQL Server 2005 that allows us to leave our indexes online and accessible while they are being rebuilt.
Feedback and Big Data
Continuous improvement comes from measurement, analysis, and changes. Steve Jones talks about how we should be doing that with our data collection, analysis, and storage.
TSQL function to detect SQL Agent job state
This article has a T-SQL function to detect the SQL Agent job state.
Converting String Data to XML and XML to String Data
In general XML documents or fragments are held in strings as text markup. In SQL Server, XML variables and columns are instead tokenised to allow rapid access to the data within. This is fine, but can cause some odd problems, such as ' entitization'. What do you do if you need to preserve the formatting? As usual Rob Sheldon comes to our aid.
Aggregate Function Product()
The TSQL aggregate function SUM() gives a number based on the addition of the values of multiple rows to each other. Do the same thing but with multiplication instead of addition.
Insider Security Threats
The biggest security threat always seems to come from insiders and today Steve Jones talks about the need to monitor your environment.
SQL Server 2012: Creative Thinking for a Creative New Licensing Model
It seems inevitable that many customers will end up paying more to get the same features they have today, under the new SQL Server licencing model, unless they respond to Microsoft's creativity with some of their own.
Blogs
AI Helps Me with My Sloppiness
By Steve Jones
I type fairly well. Well, I type fast, but I do wear out a...
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...
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