Technical Article

5 Reasons You Must Start Capturing Baseline Data

It is widely acknowledged within the SQL Server community that baselines represent valuable information that DBAs should capture. Unfortunately, very few companies manage to log and report on this information, and DBAs are then forced to troubleshoot from the hip and scramble to find evidence to prove that the database is not the problem. This article will make a compelling argument for why DBAs must start capturing baseline information, and will create a roadmap for subsequent posts.

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Performing Azure SQL Database Management Tasks by Using PowerShell with REST API

Recently, we have been exploring the ability to administer Azure SQL Database by leveraging REST APIs invoked from PowerShell-based scripts. Such an approach offers more flexibility, facilitating functionality that is not directly exposed in the PowerShell cmdlets. In this article Marcin Policht shows the benefits when dealing directly with Azure SQL Databases.

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Question of the Day

ORDER BY alias

There is a table tmp_tab:

CREATE TABLE tmp_tab (
id int,
val int
);
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES
(1, 1),
(2, NULL),
(3, 3),
(4, 4),
(5, 5);
You want to order the rows ids by the following expression:
    ISNULL(val, id) + 1
Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct)

See possible answers