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Back from My Sabbatical

It's been six weeks away from work, but I'm back now. It was a great break, I'm refreshed, and I am ready to get back to writing, speaking, and working with the data platform again. I haven't done much SQL Server work, but I have been busy. With this being my first day back, I did spend a few minutes looking back at what it was like to have a voluntary, extended break from work.

The time away was very refreshing. I was able to spend days on my own personal growth in a few areas as well as tackle personal projects that my wife and I have wanted to do around the house. I avoided the computer for the most part, only using it for personal tasks, like watching guitar videos on YouTube. I used my hands often, rarely sitting at a desk.

At the same time, this was an enlightening break. I realized I enjoy my job, and I enjoy technology. During a two day stretch near the end of my time away, I attended a conference and spoke. I engaged with other technologists and realized that I really enjoy working with and talking about databases and technology.

I am ready to go back to work and looking forward to what 2020 brings to my career. I've missed Redgate, and I've missed interacting with many of you on a daily basis.

Perhaps the best part of the sabbatical was that it have me a glimpse of retirement. I puttered around the house, did things I wanted to do, at my pace, without pressure. I handled it well, though I also think I do need a little more purpose or focus when I do retire.

It was a good break for me, and I'm looking forward to the next sabbatical in a few years. In the meantime, I'm ready to get back to writing and speaking and SQLServerCentral.

Thanks to Kathi, Kendra, Grant, and the others at Redgate for covering my work while I was away, and I hope everyone out there enjoyed their stewardship if the community.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 Featured Contents
Stairway to U-SQL

Stairway to U-SQL Level 1: Introduction to U-SQL and Azure Data Lakes

Mike McQuillan from SQLServerCentral.com

An introductory guide to querying files in Azure Data Lakes using Microsoft's U-SQL language.

Memory-Optimized TempDB Metadata in SQL Server 2019

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

For as long as I have worked with SQL Server, and on almost every system I've ever managed, tempdb has been a bottleneck in one way or another.

Free eBook: SQL Server Backup and Restore

Press Release from Redgate

In this free eBook Shawn McGehee offers advice on query tuning, cutting stored procedures, and system process design and implementation for high availability. Discover how to perform backup and restore operations using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), basic T-SQL scripts and Redgate's SQL Backup tool.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - T-SQL Copy & Paste Pattern – Increasing a performance problem

Cláudio Silva from Cláudio Silva

Disclaimer: The title is my assumption because I saw it in the past happening this way. This blog post aims to make you remember something: something that is obvious...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Power BI Monthly Digest – February 2020

Devin Knight from Devin Knight

In this month’s Power BI Digest Manuel I will again guide you through some of the latest and greatest Power BI updates this month. In

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Inserting In the Middle

I have a list of scores in Python for the tests given to a student.
scores = [92, 95, 94, 98]
I realize that I forgot to add a score in the middle, between 95 and 94. How can I insert an 88 in here?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Creating a Columnstore Index

In the AdventureWorks database, I want to create a new nonclustered columnstore index. Which of these is the correct way to do this?

-- 1
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Ncci_SalesOrderDetail
on Sales.SalesOrderDetail ( SalesOrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount)
WITH (COLUMNSTORE = ON)

-- 1
CREATE COLUMNSTORE INDEX Ncci_SalesOrderDetail
on Sales.SalesOrderDetail ( SalesOrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount)
WITH (NONCLUSTERED)

-- 3
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Ncci_SalesOrderDetail
on Sales.SalesOrderDetail ( SalesOrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount)
WITH (COLUMNSTORE)

-- 4
CREATE NONCLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE INDEX Ncci_SalesOrderDetail
on Sales.SalesOrderDetail ( SalesOrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount)

Answer: 4

Explanation: The syntax is

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Administration
SQL Server Performance Monitoring (CPU) - I'm working on trying to gather performance monitoring statistics for all my servers and generating a report based off the data so we can go back to any time and look at how the server was/is performing. For CPU I'm mainly interested in CPU Queue Length and % User processor time and % Total processor […]
Data Compression (Row\Page) - I'm looking into applying ROW or PAGE Compression to particular indexes and have used the recommended sys.sp_estimate_data_compression_savings and queries to get percentage of scans vs updates. Zero updates and large scans are ideal candidates for PAGE compression but what is best if you have the following; Page Compression estimate 38% Row Compression estimate -10% Update […]
SQL Server 2017 - Development
Sum of Two Columns Only When One Column Has A Certain Value - Dear Forum: I have two columns (Col3 and Col4).  I need a SUM of these two columns, but only when Col2 > 0. I cannot add in the WHERE clause WHEN COL2 > 0, because I need to use this column elsewhere in my query and cannot limit it for the entire query.  I just […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
Need to select where count more than 1 in criteria one and in that more than 1 . - Hi, I need to make a select and display of ITEMID, TRANSID and POSRECORDID, where TRANSID count is higher than 1, and in that result where POSRECORDID count is higher than 1. How can I achive that?   My initial SELECT is like this : SELECT TRANSID, ITEMID, POSRECORDID FROM JournalTrans WHERE STOREID = 99999 […]
How can I "stick" or freeze data within a table cell in SSRS? - Hi, In SSRS I have a report that has a group / drilldown that has a bunch of child rows. When you scroll down the group name scrolls off the page, however, I want to freeze it so that you can still see the group header when you scroll until you get to the next […]
Sum of Column When Values Different - Dear Forum: I have a Column1 that has values from 1 - 9.  I need to Sum the values of this column for each value (1 through 9) when Column2 = '1' So I the results would be: 1 = 23 2 = 43 3 = 96 ..... Would appreciate some help on how to […]
Administration - SQL Server 2014
Any way to find the name given to a session\'s local temp table? - Someone made a change to the code base, inserting a bunch of records to a local temp table and, in turn, blowing up tempdb by 600 GB in a couple hours. No one seems to know exactly what change is responsible for it, so they've asked me to find the name of the session-specific temp […]
Weird Ola backup script issue with parallel backups - I'm working on getting these scripts set up to run my backups on some new servers (OS: Win Serv 2016, SQL Server 2014) and on at least one noticed something odd. A database was backed up twice within a couple minutes of each other.  This happened at about 1am and 1:05am, so it wasn't someone […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
How to unnest the category info in sql 2014 -   Below is the table: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[usecase]( [id] [int] NULL, [desc] [varchar](50) NULL, [comm] [varchar](50) NULL, [catgroup] [varchar](50) NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] Below is the example data: insert into usecase (id, [desc], comm, catgroup) values(1,'desc 1', 'comment 1', '1') insert into usecase (id, [desc], comm, catgroup) values(2,'desc 2', 'comment 2', '1,2') insert into usecase […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
Access Denied while installing SQL server 2016 - Hi,   I am getting below error while installing SQL server, when selected domain account for SQL server engine startup account and press next.   (11) 2020-02-16 14:58:48 Slp: Sco: Attempting to check if container 'WinNT://DOMAIN' of user account exists (11) 2020-02-16 14:58:48 Slp: Prompting user if they want to retry this action due to […]
Backup Azure SQL database from local windows Powershell ise - Hi, I am to backup azure sql database from my local windows power shell ise. In azure cloud i have created blob container. When i am running below command backup-sqldataase -serverinstance "server name given in the azure sql database" -database "db_name" -sqlcredential "username of databae" getting error as below. Backup-SqlDatabase : Failed to connect to […]
Testing Database Restores - I'm looking for some feedback from the community. I finally got permission to setup a server to do test restores. Yes, I know, you don't have backups until you know you can restore from them. Things move slowly at some places. My questions are the following: Do you test each full backup every day or […]
T-SQL (SS2K8)
varbinary(max) - Users are experiencing some performance issues when they come in/out of the building. Their ID card is scanned. That process takes sometimes 20 seconds for a pic to come up before we are allowed to enter into a building. This is the code which runs every time we scan the card. Select LastName, EmpNumber, Granted, […]
Integration Services
SSIS Source Control - Hello, our environment consists of one Azure VM, a "utility" server with SQL Server 2017 DB engine, SSIS and SSRS installed (we are small shop).  We are in the process of migration about 50 SSIS packages from a SQL Sever 2012 environment and would like implement source control, as we have three people that need […]
Exporting data from flat file to SQL using SSIS (Multiple files) - Hi, I am facing an issue with exporting data from flat file to SQL using SSIS. The flat file has the following data (also attached as Flat_file): PAYMENTFILE|250|42|20200224|1300 1|1003003382|GBP|171.95|20200224 2|1003003383|GBP|171.95|20200224 3|1003003384|GBP|171.95|20200224 It needs to be loaded to the SQL table as attached (SQL_Snapshot) using SSIS. There is also an additional requirement to load multiple flat […]
 

 

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