Stretch Pricing
The Stretch database feature in SQL Server 2016 is fantastic, but is it too expensive?
Row Level Security Part 3 – Disabling Row Level Security for DBAs and Database Owners
In the third part of his series on Row Level Security (RLS), Greg Larson shows how to disable RLS for database administrators, sysadmins, and database owners.
The Internals of WITH ENCRYPTION
Paul White discusses the internals of SQL Server's WITH ENCRYPTION clause, and explains why it is not as safe as you might think.
The PoSh DBA: Accessing SQL Server from PowerShell
The worst part for a DBA of getting started with PowerShell is often just figuring out the best way of working with SQL Server. The most suitable approach to accessing SQL Server depends on the sort of task you need to produce a script for. Laerte Junior aims at a simple guide to the most common approaches and when to use them.
The Penalty for a Data Breach
One of the things that will be debated quite a bit in the next few years will be the penalties for data loss.
Using IronPython to talk to SQL Server
IronPython is a Python implementation build on .NET. This article shows how you can use IronPython to access SQL Server Management Objects.
PowerShell Desired State Configuration: Pull Mode
Automated configuration management is simpler with Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Push mode, but what is the best way to use DSC to automate deployments on your machines? ‘Push’ mode or ‘Pull’ mode? How can you reduce configuration-drift over time? Nicolas Prigent describes the second DSC deployment mode: Pull mode.
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