Demystifying the use of CASE in an ORDER BY statement
Chuck Hoffman exposes the mysteries of getting CASE statements to work in dynamic ORDER BY statements.
System Stored Procedures for SQL Azure Linked Servers
Microsoft released the preview version of Azure SQL Database V12 in December of 2014. As a database administrator, you might wonder about the schema and security of these new data marts. Microsoft has supplied system stored procedures for the database developer to query the Linked Servers for this type of meta data, as John Miner explains.
Architecture for Auditing
The way in which auditing is build into our systems isn't the best way to implement the practice.
Data Mining Part 28: Programming with AMO and VB
In this article we will use VB.NET to connect to our Mining Models.
Data Mining Part 28: Programming with AMO and VB
In this article we will use VB.NET to connect to our Mining Models.
The Importance of Database Indexing
In this article, James Munro demonstrates an example of a simple query without an index and then that same query again with the index. A simple introduction to database indexing.
What Not To Say
Steve Jones has some advice for data professionals today. These are a few things that your boss doesn't want to hear, and you probably don't want to say.
Query Folding in Power Query to Improve Performance
In this tip Koen Verbeeck discusses query folding, how you can take advantage from it and how to make sure query folding takes place.
Finding Production Drift
The changes made to production can be problematic at times. Steve Jones notes we can't prevent them, but we can look for them.
Cybercrime - the Dark Edges of the Internet
Criminal activity is a growing menace on the internet: This inevitably means more diligence is required by legitimate users in the face of an increasingly sophisticated criminal threat. Robert Sheldon describes some of the emerging threats and risks.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Forums
Database file shrink issue.
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers