SQL Prompt Tips #7 - Begin End Highlighting
This SQL Prompt tip shows you how code highlighting makes it easier to find which items match up with each other.
COALESCE in SQL Server
Sandeep Mittal provides an introduction to the COALESCE function and shows how to use it.
Hadoop many flavors of SQL
What are the most popular SQL implementations for Hadoop? How different are they from T-SQL?
The Biggest Data Breach (For Now)
JP Morgan suffers the largest data breach for a financial institution, but Steve Jones doesn't think this record will stand for long.
Azure SQL Database - Transparent Data Encryption
Transparent Data Encryption offers the ability to encrypt content of the database, its transaction logs, as well as backups while at rest. Encryption and decryption are performed in real-time, at the individual page level, as the database is being written to and read from storage, without necessitating changes to applications accessing their data. Marcin Policht reviews the feature.
Getting ready for Hadoop
Before adopting Hadoop into your organisation there are a number of factors to consider. This article highlights some of the key points.
SQL Server Heaps, and Their Fragmentation
In SQL Server, heaps are rightly treated with suspicion. Although there are rare cases where they perform well, they are likely to be the cause of poor performance. If a table is likely to have a large number of changes, then it can become fragmented due to way that space is allocated and forward pointers used. How does one detect this problem? Is it significant? How does one deal with it, if necessary? Neeraj Tripathi explains.
Early Adopters
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren that looks at those that run software early in its lifecycle.
Using SQL Prompt to Accelerate the Top 10 Most Common Database Scripts
There may be some people who enjoy repetitive typing, but Grant Fritchey doesn't. He's always preferred SQL Prompt. The standard snippets suit developers fine but aren't so DBA-oriented, so he set about asking the SQLServerCentral community what they typed in the most, and set about producing a set of DBA snippets with the results.
Blogs
PlanTrace: Stop Reading Redshift EXPLAIN Plans. Start Seeing Them
PlanTrace: Stop Reading Redshift EXPLAIN Plans. Start Seeing Them Introducing PlanTrace — a free, browser-based...
A Cloud Dependency Failure from Amazon
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I went to sleep while reading a Kindle book on my phone. I know...
Deploying AI in logistics (the unfiltered version)
A conversation with Jan Laš, CIO at HOPI, about what deploying a data agent...
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