Advanced Mathematical Formulas using the M Language
The Power BI desktop designer contains a rich set of advanced mathematical functions. In this article, John Miner shows how you can combine these functions together in a computed column to solve numerical business problems.
Hacking Data
A new series of attacks were proven recently using music files to attach embedded systems in cars. Could this be another attack vector that we need to worry about?
Partitioning on a Budget
Enterprise Edition customers enjoy the manageability and performance benefits offered by table partitioning, but this feature is not available in Standard Edition. Aaron Bertrand explains his idea for achieving at least some of partitioning's upsides on any edition.
Running as SysAdmin
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren. We still have many applications runnning under sysadmin accounts, often "sa". Why do people do this? Andy has a few thoughts on the subject.
Azure Data Lakes
The Data-lake is basically a large repository of data for 'big data' analytic workloads, held in its original format. The Azure Data Lake adds Data Lake Analytics, and Azure HDInsight. Although the tools are there for Big Data Analysis, it will require new skills to use, and a heightened attention to Data Governance if it is to appeal to the average enterprise. Rob Sheldon takes a look.
Cursor-Killing: Accessing Data in the Next Row
Cursors are considered by many to be the bane of good T-SQL. What are the best ways to avoid iterative T-SQL and to write queries that look and perform beautifully? This first part in an ongoing series of cursor-killing handles inter-row analysis.
Jodie Beay and the Production Database Drift
You make an example database, like NorthWind or WidgetDev in order to test out your deployment system and the next thing you know you're worrying about constraints, backup and security. Then you add an index to the production system and feel a pang of guilt. What would the Devs say? Somehow databases take on lives of their own, populated by the lost souls of users, Developers and DBAs. Has the Redgate DLM Team's practice Forex database somehow come alive?
Daily Database Backup Scripts
Execute these stored procedures to backup all your database daily and your transaction logs several time daily. Save space by using the overwrite feature.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
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...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers