When Do We Ask for Help?
When do we ask for help? It's a tough balance to strike between asking too soon or waiting too long.
Power BI Smart Narrative
A new feature in Power BI is the Smart Narrative that allows you to add a textual narrative to your reports to help provide additional information to the user.
Why is my SQL Server Query Suddenly Slow?
A SQL Server query is suddenly running slowly, for no obvious reason. Grant Fritchey shares a 5-point plan to help you track down the cause and fix the problem.
Hacking the DTSX (SSIS XML file) to Change Defaults
Introduction According to Microsoft, DTSX is an XML-based file format that stores the instructions for the processing of a data flow from its points of origin to its points of destination, including transformations and optional processing steps between the origin and destination points. In a nutshell, when you are creating your SSIS package, the SQL […]
Checking for Missing Module References in a SQL Server Database Using Flyway
There are certain checks that need to be done after a database migration is complete. One good example of this is the check that a migration script, such as one that merges changes from a branch into main, doesn't cause 'invalid objects' (a.k.a. 'missing references') in your databases. I'll show you how to run this check, using sp_RefreshSQLModule, and incorporate it into a Flyway "after" migration script.
Exploring the Capabilities of Azure Synapse Spark External Tables
In this article we explore additional capabilities of Azure Synapse Spark and SQL Serverless External Tables.
Key findings from the 2021 State of Database DevOps report
Redgate has just published the 5th annual State of Database DevOps report, In this blogpost, Andrea Giardina explores key insights across four trends: DevOps adoption, performance & DevOps, the rise of cloud & cross-database, and the impact of the pandemic.
Scripts to Automate Creating and Loading a SQL Server Table
Use these T-SQL strategies for dropping, creating, and populating tables in custom schemas across different SQL Server versions from SQL Server 2019 back to SQL Server 2005.
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