Database Administration Edward Pollack in Database Administration The Importance of Retention It is always an afterthought. New objects are created that start off small and current. New feature development takes over... 19 January 2024 24 min read
T-SQL Programming Itzik Ben-Gan in T-SQL Programming Two-Dimensional Interval Packing Challenge Packing intervals is a classic SQL task that involves packing groups of intersecting intervals to their respective continuous intervals. In... 02 January 2024 17 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Counting more efficiently Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a post called “Bad habits : Counting rows the hard way.” In that post,... 20 December 2023 7 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming When an update doesn’t update Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: I changed data from my application, but when I checked the database,... 27 November 2023 5 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Strategies for queries against bit columns Recently someone posted a question where they couldn’t quite figure out how to construct a predicate based on a bit... 20 November 2023 7 min read
T-SQL Programming Edward Pollack in T-SQL Programming Exporting and Importing Data into SQL Server Using Files There are plenty of applications and tools available that allow for the movement of data in and out of SQL... 23 October 2023 23 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Don’t use DISTINCT as a “join-fixer” I’ve quietly resolved performance issues by re-writing slow queries to avoid DISTINCT. Often, the DISTINCT is there only to serve... 16 October 2023 6 min read
Performance Aaron Bertrand in Performance Normalize strings to optimize space and searches While this article is specifically geared to SQL Server, the concepts apply to any relational database platform. The Stack Exchange... 02 October 2023 9 min read
T-SQL Programming Itzik Ben-Gan in T-SQL Programming T-SQL Fundamentals: Controlling Duplicates When people start learning a new field, for example T-SQL, it’s tempting to spend very little time trying to understand... 28 September 2023 20 min read
T-SQL Programming Drupal Grupal in T-SQL Programming Alternatives To SQL Server 2022 Built-in function GREATEST If you haven’t already heard, SQL Server 2022 introduced a new built-in system function called GREATEST. Simply put, it is... 18 September 2023 14 min read
Blogs Louis Davidson in Blogs Yet Another Reason to Not Use sp_ in SQL Server Object Names In 2012, Aaron Bertrand said most everything I knew (and a bit more) about the issues with using the sp_... 25 August 2023 6 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Working around schema drift in SQL Server At Stack Overflow, our environment has multiple implementations of a largely – but not 100% – identical schema. (By “schema,”... 14 August 2023 10 min read
T-SQL Programming Greg Larsen in T-SQL Programming Using a Subquery in a SELECT statement Did you know you can include a SELECT statement within another SELECT statement? When a SELECT statement is embedded within... 26 June 2023 15 min read
T-SQL Programming Itzik Ben-Gan in T-SQL Programming T-SQL Gap-Filling Challenge A student of mine sent me a T-SQL challenge involving gap-filling of missing dates and balances. I found the challenge... 29 May 2023 19 min read
Blogs Ben Johnston in Blogs Unmasking SQL Server Dynamic Data Masking – Part 1 – Introduction This is the beginning of a series on SQL Server Dynamic Data Masking. Dynamic Data Masking is a concept familiar... 26 May 2023 12 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Changing log growth strategy in SQL Server 2022 When I first saw a bullet item stating SQL Server 2022 would support instant file initialization for log file growth,... 15 May 2023 6 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming One use case for NOT using schema prefixes I’ve long been a huge advocate for always referencing objects with a schema prefix in SQL Server.… 20 April 2023 6 min read
T-SQL Programming Edward Pollack in T-SQL Programming Ordered Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2022 One of the more challenging technical details of columnstore indexes that regularly gets attention is the need for data to... 07 April 2023 17 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming GENERATE_SERIES: My new go-to to build sets I have come across a lot of use cases for manufacturing rows on the fly, aside from the common goal... 30 March 2023 12 min read
T-SQL Programming Greg Larsen in T-SQL Programming Paging Data in T-SQL Sometimes when working with very large sets of data, you may not want to return all of the data at... 20 March 2023 10 min read
