How to Identify Useful SQL Server Table Statistics
In this article, Fikrat Azizov describes the different approaches to maintaining statistics and shows how you can use the data from your servers for intelligent statistics updates.
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Third Party Visuals in Power BI Desktop
Power BI is as extensible as it is powerful In this article you will see how to impress your users with added visuals
Is a RID Lookup faster than a Key Lookup?
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Great Developers
A great developer is worth more than an average one, but how much more? Steve Jones has a few thoughts for you to think about.
Mentors and Professional Groups
When wrestling with technical problems or ideas, it is good to discuss with, argue against, present ideas to, and listen to your colleagues. This is true of anyone working in IT, but really important for the likes of database professionals who are engaged in a very rapidly-developing engineering specialism that demands that you keep up […]
Connecting to SQL Data Warehouse
The most frustrating thing with any new system is often just working out how to connect to it. Oddly, you can’t use SSMS with SQL Data Warehouse, but it is fine with SSDT, SSIS, Power BI desktop, sqlcmd, BCP, and a range of Microsoft cloud services - there are PowerShell Cmdlets too. Rob Sheldon provides the details.
Bias, the Serial Killer of Diversity
Today we have a guest editorial from Kellyn Pot'Vin that tackles the tough topic of diversity.
Dynamically Query a 100 Million Row Table-Efficiently
This article describes methods of creating dynamic queries without the use of dynamic SQL to efficiently access large tables.
Automatically Creating UML Database Diagrams for SQL Server
SQL Server database developers seem reluctant to use diagrams when documenting their databases. It is probably because it has, in the past, been difficult to automatically draw precisely what you want, other than a vast Entity-relationship diagram. However, you can do it without buying any third-party tool, just using some existing Java-based open-source tools; and can even automate it entirely, using SQL and PowerShell. Phil Factor shows how.
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Forums
SPAM Issues May 2026
We suffered a SPAM attack from May 1-6, which unfortunately corresponded with time off...
SQL Password enforcing
Hi to all We have situation at a client where someone is illegally changing...
SQL Password enforcing
Hi to all We have situation at a client where someone is illegally changing...
Question of the Day
Creating a JSON Document III
I have this data in a table called dbo.NFLTeams
TeamID TeamName City YearEstablished ------ -------- ---- --------------- 1 Cowboys Dallas 1960 2 Eagles Philadelphia 1933 3 Packers Green Bay 1919 4 Chiefs Kansas City 1960 5 49ers San Francisco 1946 6 Broncos Denver 1960 7 Seahawks Seattle 1976 8 Patriots New England 1960If I run this code, how many rows are returned?
SELECT TOP 2
json_objectagg('Team' : TeamName)
FROM dbo.NFLTeams;
See possible answers