Portable Data Storage
Today Steve wonders if the technology for storage and data transfers has superseded the need for portable drives.
Eager Aggregation in SQL queries
Aggregation is a widely used way to summarize the content of a database. It is usually expressed with GROUP BY clause or just using aggregate functions (like COUNT or SUM). When the database engine executes a query with aggregations, it produces individual rows need to compute the required output and then performs the aggregation as (almost) last step. We discuss in this article how to re-write a query manually so that the order of operations will be different and when it can be beneficial.
Play To Your Strengths
I really enjoy playing with radios [ed: we know, you won't shut up about it]. Something as simple as checking in to a local net (basically saying hi to a bunch of people on the radio) is fun. However, there's so much more to it. In the last few weeks I've been testing a new […]
Continuity Across Restarts
A cloud version of Aurora MySQL has added support for the buffer pool to survive restarts of the database engine. Steve thinks that's an interesting technology, which could be helpful.
Dimensional Modelling Case Study Part 1 - Age Group
Learn how you can handle dimensional modeling in a data warehouse when your data uses different categorization for ages.
Counting more efficiently
Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a post called “Bad habits : Counting rows the hard way.” In that post, I talked about how we can use SQL Server’s metadata to instantly retrieve the row count for a table.
Adding Cookie Consent to SQL Server Central
We are adding a consent form to the SQL Server Central website to allow our cookies.
An In-Depth Look at MIXED_PAGE_ALLOCATION and Changes in Page Allocation
Learn about the benefits of mixed extent allocation in SQL Server 2016, along with how you can check this setting or enable it in your database.
Re-Evaluating the Cloud
An update from 37 Signals/Basecamp shows their expatriation from the cloud has been a success. Worth reading before you make too many moves to the cloud.
Connecting SQL Server to SaaS applications with a Linked Server
But nowadays, most services are in the cloud. They're not on your servers; they're somewhere else. With most software-as-a-service (SAAS) offerings, you don't have many options to configure connectivity. What if you need data from one SaaS service into another?
Blogs
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Forums
Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects: The Fabric Modern Data Platform
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects:...
Creating JSON III
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Creating JSON III
Testing is Becoming More Important
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Testing is Becoming More Important
Question of the Day
Creating JSON III
In a SQL Server 2025 table, called Beer, I have this data:
BeerIDBeerName 1Becks 2Fat Tire 3Mac n Jacks 4Alaskan Amber 8KirinI run this code:
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG(
BeerID: BeerName )
FROM beer;
What are the results? See possible answers