Sins of SQL: The Time Table
Steve Gray discusses one of the oldest OLAP techiques for representing the time dimension - and shows why it's a lot easier to stick to DATETIME values.
TCA
SQL Server has a lower TCA, total cost of administration, than Oracle. Steve Jones comments today on a few of the reasons.
Statistical Sampling for Verifying Database Backups
A DBA's huge workload can start to threaten best practices for data backup and recovery, but ingenuity, and an eye for a good tactic, can usually find a way. For Tom, the revelation about a solution came from eating crabs. Statistical sampling can be brought to bear to minimize the risk of failure of an emergency database restore.
A Google-like Full Text Search
Implementing searching in your database is always a challenge and MVP Michael Coles brings us a method of building a Google-like search for SQL Server.
Getting the Message
Regardless of the speed of your SQL routines there comes a time, for any server-based system, when you need to think "parallel" and "asynchronous". So why, Phil Factor wonders, does there seem to be so little interest in Service Broker?
Free e-book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
For a limited time, you can download this 10-chapter e-book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner.
Running SQL Server Jobs using a Proxy Account
Proxy accounts are a useful tool to enable teams to work independently allow users who do not have administrative access to SQL Server to run jobs.
TSQL Challenge 31 - Managing multiple overlapping date intervals.
This challenge is adapted from a budgeting system used in a large company to perform quarterly analysis of what kind of work will be done and where it will be done. Project Managers make plans and the estimated hours of work required from each employee each month end up in a central database. Top managers want to see a synthesis of this by department and profession
Transaction Log Growth, do you need it?
One of the most common questions asked about SQL Server has to do with the transaction log and why does it grow. James Rea brings us a good explanation here of what happens and what you should do about it.
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