Competition or Cooperation
Would you rather work with people, or compete with them? Steve Jones has comments on the Microsoft Stack Ranking system that seems to encourage the latter.
Getting Started with Microsoft Power Query for Excel
Power Query, provided as part of Microsoft Power BI self-service solution, is an Excel add-in that can be used for data discovery, reshaping the data and combining data coming from different sources. Power Query is one of Excel add-ins. Read on to learn how to install and get started using it.
Helping Streamline Log Shipping Failovers
Using Log Shipping? Looking for a more automated way to fail over during a disaster? Read on...
Lessons Learned from Six Years of Agile Database Development
Alex Kuznetsov describes the agile principles, techniques and tools that allowed his development team to make frequent database refactoring a reality, without disrupting users. He explains how this allowed his team to apply an iterative, evolutionary approach to the design and development of their databases, as well as applications.
SQL Monitor Metric: Processes in a runnable state (scheduler query)
Use this script in SQL Monitor to determine the general load on the operating system you can get a count of the processes that are in a runnable state. This value will go up and down as various systems run on the operating system. It’s only a measure of load on the system and won’t indicate the cause of problems, but will show you pressure on the system.
Going over their heads: IT Decisions
Phil factor points out that Marketing people who appeal directly to enterprise CIOs are generally wasting their time, and are better off convincing IT people in general.
High-Performance Transact-SQL with Window Functions
Window functions are more intuitive and simpler in many cases than alternative SQL methods.
Is Your Data Relational?
An RDBMS is a good fit for many database problems, perhaps as Steve Jones thinks, the best fit for most. However NoSQL systems have a place, we're just not sure where.
Getting Ready for Big Data: Prepping the Data Warehouse
Big Data implementations bring their own problems and issues, and will require database administrators and support staff to redesign the data warehouse architecture. Here's how.
More Tips for New (and old) DBAs
Following up on the popular article: Tips for New DBAs, author Craig Outcalt tackles three more issues including customer support and why you should learn T-SQL.
Blogs
RANK() vs DENSE_RANK(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I haven’t done one of these in awhile, but I saw an article recently...
Using CAT for Testing of Data Agents
In last months one of the scenarios where you can use AI has been...
Forums
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
25 Years Later: What SQLServerCentral Meant to Me
Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years Later: What SQLServerCentral...
Doing Good at SQL Server Central
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Doing Good at SQL Server...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers