External Article

How to Script Dimensions with data build tool (dbt) Macros

In this article, we’ll revisit the dimension models we created. We wrote the entire SQL statement for the dimension by hand, and the dimensions themselves were very rudimentary; they lacked a surrogate key and there were no audit columns (such as insert date and update date). We’ll show you how we can expand the dimensions using Jinja, but also how we can minimize development effort by baking reusable patterns into the Jinja code.

SQLServerCentral Article

Advanced SQL Server Page Forensics: Detecting Page Splits and Allocations with DBCC PAGE

Page splits are an often-overlooked performance killer in SQL Server. In this article, we take a forensic look at how serial inserts differ from mid-table inserts, revealing why inserting rows out of order causes hidden page splits, increased IO, and fragmentation. Using a wide-column table, we demonstrate both scenarios and decode their impact with page-level analysis.

SQLServerCentral Article

Deprecated but Forgotten: Why SQL Server’s Text, NText, and Image Data Types Still Haunt Your Systems

TEXT, NTEXT, and IMAGE columns have been deprecated for nearly two decades, yet they still silently haunt many SQL Server environments. This article explains their hidden limitations with practical demos and shows why migrating to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) is critical for modern performance, maintainability, and future upgrades.

Blogs

Solving SQL Server Mysteries with a Whole Gang of Sleuths -Scooby Dooing Episode 4

By

One thing I’ve always loved about the Scooby-Doo cartoon is that he never solved...

SQL Server Availability Groups

By

Flexibility and Scale at the Database Level When SQL Server 2012 introduced Availability Groups...

Modify Power BI page visibility and active status with Semantic Link Labs

By

Setting page visibility and the active page are often overlooked last steps when publishing...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Password Guidance

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Password Guidance

Using table variables in T-SQL

By Alessandro Mortola

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using table variables in T-SQL

Azure elastic query credential question

By cphite

I am trying to check out elastic query between two test instances we have...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Using table variables in T-SQL

What happens if you run the following code in SQL Server 2022+?

declare @t1 table (id int);

insert into @t1 (id) values (NULL), (1), (2), (3);

select count(*)
from @t1
where @t1.id is distinct from NULL;
 

See possible answers