SQLServerCentral Editorial

No reason to abandon SQL

The early signs are that we can now run a SQL-based relational database with distributed execution plans over commodity hardware, leaving just the task of splicing together of the result to the engine itself, then why can’t Microsoft or Oracle do it?

External Article

Do We Still Need Database Design in the Era of Big Data?

Many big data application implementations seem to begin with an existing data warehouse, one or more new high-volume data streams, and some specialized hardware and software. The data storage issue is often accommodated by installing a proprietary hardware appliance that can store huge amounts of data while providing extremely fast data access. In these cases, do we really need to worry about database design?

Technical Article

SQL Saturday #294 - Philadelphia

SQL Saturday is coming to Philadelphia on June 7, 2014. This event is a free day of training and networking for SQL Server Professionals, organized by the Philadelphia SQL Server User Group. The event also features two paid-for Precons, one presented by Allan Hirt and the other presented jointly by Joseph D'Antoni and Stacia Misner. Register while space is available.

External Article

Producing JSON Documents from SQL Server queries via TSQL

Although SQL Server supports XML well, XML's little cousin JSON gets no love. This is frustrating now that JSON is in so much demand. Maybe, Phil Factor suggests, it is possible to leverage all that XML, and XPath, goodness in SQL Server to produce JSON in a versatile way from SQL Queries? Yes, it so happens that there are plenty of alternatives.

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Question of the Day

Getting the Average

I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.

salesperson commission
Brian       12
Brian       16
Andy        7
Andy        14
Andy        21
Steve       20
Steve       NULL
All the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
     , AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
 FROM commission
 GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve?

See possible answers