Convert Rows into Columns
Convert the rows of a SELECT statement into a predetermined number of columns.
How Much Eventual Consistency Do You Have?
This week Steve Jones wants to know if you have eventual consistency in your environment?
Integrating Big Data Applications into Operational Environments
Integrating big data appliance solutions into a data warehouse requires preparation and forethought. DBAs and business data consumers must work together both to address the implementation issues above and to meet the needs of multiple business data consumers. Lockwood Lyon discusses the topic.
Are We Engineers?
Steve Jones continues the never ending argument of whether software developers deserve the moniker of engineer.
Database Continuous Integration with SQL CI and Jenkins
If it's deemed important to test application code as part of a CI process, the same must apply to the database. In this blog post, Jason Crease shows how to create a smooth process where you can build and deploy databases alongside your application code from within Jenkins with the SQL CI plugin.
SMKs, DMKs, Certificates for TDE and Encrypted Backups
This article details SMKs, DMKs and certificates in SQL Server as they relate to Transparent Data Encryption and Encrypted Backups.
Custom Built Statistics
Dan Holmes shows how you can create statistics exactly the way you want within the bounds of the 200 steps available.
Automated Rapid Recovery during Database Code Releases using Snapshots
Leveraging snapshots across multiple databases simultaneously to allow for quick rollback in case of a problem deploying code
Building Better Communication Skills
Today Steve Jones reminds us that our communication skills are important. They are something that we use constantly at work and are worth developing.
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