Business Analysis: A Guide to Better Business Requirements
This article presents ten business analysis guidelines, representing best practices from successful projects.
SQL Server 2005 Bug Alert: Merge Replication Could Mean Data Loss
The SQL Server 2005 merge replication engine introduced breaking changes that can cause data loss for both MSDE and SQL Server Express subscribers. Find out how this bug manifests itself in a real-world scenario.
SQLonCall: Mock Interview, Part I
The first part of a great video series from Chris Shaw of SQL Oncall that walks you through a mock interview and gives advice on how you can present yourself in the best light.
Source Control in SQL Server
One of the most requested features from SQL Server developers is the integration of source control with T-SQL code. SQL Server Management Studio brings some integration with Visual Source Safe and longtime SQL Server author Raj Vasant explains it to us.
Accessing and Updating Data in ASP.NET 2.0: Handling Database NULL Values
Dealing with NULL database values in ASP.NET.
Custom check-in policies with VSTS
In this column, I'll dig into check-in notes and policies. You'll learn how check-in notes work and how to write your own custom policy implementations.
Under the Hood: How Dependency Probability is Computed by Naïve Bayes
This tip provides insight into the inner workings of the Microsoft Naive Bayes algorithm, showing how the algorithm computes the score used to filter out correlations.
Developers and DBAs
The battle between developers and DBAs can be a rough one at times. However DBAs are often outnumbered by developers and need to be sure they fit in. DBA Janet Wong brings us one of her experiences about how you can better go with the flow.
The 5 Stages of Volunteering
Volunteers are important to ensuring the success of so many organizations. IT-based organizations, such as user groups, are no different. Steve Jones leads you through a few of the stages of being a volunteer and hopes more of you will participate in your local area.
The DBA Routine
What's the routine of a normal DBA job? Too many people work alone and don't get feedback or comments on what they should be doing from other DBAs. Andy Warren has jotted some notes down on what you should make sure is a part of your job.
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