Back Yourself Up
Ever thought about yourself as a resource that should be backed up to minimize your loss?
Using MERGE in SQL Server to insert, update and delete at the same time
In a typical data warehousing application, quite often during the ETL cycle you need to perform INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE operations on a TARGET table by matching the records from the SOURCE table.
I Feel Like a Magician
Something sufficiently complex, in our eyes, may appear to be magic. Steve Jones feels some of his knowledge about SQL Server looks the same way to others.
Modern Data Warehouse Design Pattern – Part I
The modern data warehouse design helps in building a hub for all types of data to initiate integrated and transformative solutions. To achieve these goals and to support modern designs, Microsoft has introduced a set of fully managed, cloud-based services that not only support modern data warehouse design patterns but also provide the advantages of inbuilt scalability, high availability, good performance, and flexibility.
Changing Linked Server Properties
A quick guide on changing the linked server properties and settings.
Introduction to HIPAA and SOX
Despite the attention to data privacy and protection caused this year because of the GDPR, regulations governing how data is handled are nothing new. In this article, Robert Sheldon provides an overview of two US regulations, HIPAA and SOX, and explains how these regulations affect DBAs.
How to execute an SSIS package from the command line or a batch file
An SSIS package that is executed on an ad hoc basis can be run from Business Intelligence Development Studio easily enough, but a package that is going to be run on a regular schedule is best executed through a batch file using the DTExec.exe command line utility.
Blogs
Microsoft Build 2026 announcements
By James Serra
Once again there were a number of Microsoft Build announcements related to data and...
T-SQL Tuesday #199: Roundup
A good week ago I hosted the monthly T-SQL Tuesday blog party. I invited...
No Shortcuts for the SQLCMD Batch Terminator: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I was messing around with SQLCMD and I realized something I hadn’t known. I’ve...
Forums
Increment a number in a SQL Query based on a value
I have an issue where I have a Bill of Material list of items...
Follow Your Hunch
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Follow Your Hunch
What Happens When You Ask a Local AI to Query Your Database?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item What Happens When You Ask...
Question of the Day
Detecting Characters
I have a SQL Server 2022 English default installation on a server. I want to detect if there are any upper case characters in rows and I have this code:
SELECT CustomerNameID,
CustomerName
FROM dbo.CustomerName
WHERE CustomerName = LOWER(CustomerName)
Here is the sample data I am testing with:
CustomerNameID CustomerName 1 John Smith 2 Sarah Johnson 3 MICHAEL WILLIAMS 4 JENNIFER BROWN 5 david jones 6 emily davis 7 Robert Miller 8 LISA WILSON 9 christopher moore 10 Amanda TaylorHow many rows are returned? See possible answers