Rajendra Gupta

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As an MCSA certified and Microsoft Certified Trainer in Gurgaon, India, with 13 years of experience, Rajendra works for a variety of large companies focusing on performance optimization, monitoring, high availability, and disaster recovery strategies and implementation. He is the author of hundreds of authoritative articles on SQL Server, Azure, MySQL, Linux, Power BI, Performance tuning, AWS/Amazon RDS, Git, and related technologies that have been viewed by over 10m readers to date.

He is the creator of one of the biggest free online collections of articles on a single topic, with his 50-part series on SQL Server Always On Availability Groups. Based on his contribution to the SQL Server community, he has been recognized with various awards including the prestigious “Best author of the year" continuously in 2020 and 2021 at SQLShack.

Raj is always interested in new challenges so if you need consulting help on any subject covered in his writings, he can be reached at rajendra.gupta16@gmail.com

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Latest posts by Rajendra Gupta (see all)

Direct Query Mode in Power BI for Azure Analysis Services - April 19, 2021
Azure Analysis Services and Power BI Live connections - April 14, 2021
An overview of Power BI data models - April 12, 2021

SQL Server Statistics and how to perform Update Statistics in SQL

August 13, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives a walk-through of SQL Server Statistics and different methods to perform SQL Server Update Statistics.

Monitoring SQL Server deadlocks using the system_health extended event

August 12, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

Performance monitoring is a must to do the task for a DBA. You should ensure that the database performance is optimal all the time without any impact on the databases. Performance issues act like an open stage, and you need to look at every aspect such as CPU, RAM, server performance, database performance, indexes, blocking, waits, and SQL Server deadlocks. You might face frequent deadlocks issues, and they have a direct impact on the application performance.

Windows Failover Cluster Quorum Modes in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

August 8, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of Windows Failover Cluster Quorum modes that is necessary for SQL Server Always on Availability Groups.

SQL STUFF function overview

July 31, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of the SQL STUFF function with various examples.

FOR XML PATH clause in SQL Server

July 30, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

As SQL professionals, we often have to deal with XML data in our databases. This article will help you walk through several examples of using ‘FOR XML PATH’ clause in SQL Server.

Max Worker Threads for SQL Server Always on Availability Group databases

July 26, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of the Max Worker Threads for the SQL Server Always On Availability Group databases.

Comparing VARCHAR(max) vs VARCHAR(n) data types in SQL Server

July 26, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

I have seen that SQL developers use varchar(max) data while designing the tables or temporary tables. We might not be sure about the data length, or we want to eliminate the string or binary truncation error.

Overview of SQL Server Startup Parameters for the SQL Database Engine Service

July 24, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

In the SQL world, it is an important activity to perform SQL Server installation for a database administrator. Have you ever noticed ‘SQL Server Startup Parameters’ for the SQL Service? You might not have noticed them, but these parameters are beneficial for DBAs.

DBCC FREEPROCCACHE command introduction and overview

July 23, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of the SQL Server DBCC FREEPROCCACHE command and its usage with different examples.

Understanding Log Sequence Numbers for SQL Server Transaction Log Backups and Full Backups

July 22, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article explores the SQL Server Transaction log backups and log sequence number (LSN) in combination with the Full backups.

Overview of Service Principal Name and Kerberos authentication in SQL Server

July 18, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of Service Principal Name (SPN) for using the Kerberos authentication in SQL Server connections. We use the Kerberos authentication to authenticate windows users securely for providing access to SQL Server.

SQL Server Lead function overview and examples

July 16, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article explores the SQL Server Lead function and its usage with various examples.

SQL DROP TABLE statement overview

July 16, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview of the SQL DROP TABLE statement to remove one or more tables from a database.

Applying Transaction Logs to the Secondary Replica in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

July 12, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

Introduction

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups provides HADR solutions for the SQL databases. Here HA refers to high availability and DR refers to disaster recovery. The priority of this feature is to keep the database highly available and then provide Disaster recovery. Due to this reason, if the secondary replica goes down in a synchronous data commit mode, SQL Server changes commit mode to Asynchronous so that users can continue run the transactions and a secondary replica can be in sync later once it bought up. SQL Listener also points to the primary replica and continues redirects connection to the primary replica.

View Definition Permissions in SQL Server

July 9, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

We have various database objects such as view, stored procedures, triggers, functions and indexes in a relational database. Many times, we want to view definitions for these objects. We can use either SSMS graphical way or t-SQL to generate scripts.

A walk-through of moving database files in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

July 8, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups feature provides high availability (HA) and disaster recovery solutions. We can add multiple databases in a single Always on Availability Group on SQL Server Enterprise edition. Before we add a database in the AG group, we need to use the following checklist.

Difference between SQL Truncate and SQL Delete statements in SQL Server

July 8, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

We get the requirement to remove the data from the relational SQL table. We can use both SQL Delete and SQL Truncate statement to delete the data. Understanding differences between these commands helps SQL developers to handle their data well. Additionally, this is a very common question asked in SQL beginner’s interviews.

Overview of SQL RANK functions

July 3, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

We perform calculations on data using various aggregated functions such as Max, Min, and AVG. We get a single output row using these functions. SQL Sever provides SQL RANK functions to specify rank for individual fields as per the categorizations. It returns an aggregated value for each participating row. SQL RANK functions also knows as Window Functions.

SQL View – A complete introduction and walk-through

July 1, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

In relational databases, data is structured using various database objects like tables, stored procedure, views, clusters etc. This article aims to walk you through ‘SQL VIEW’ – one of the widely-used database objects in SQL Server.

Overview of SQL Server Rounding Functions – SQL Round, Ceiling and Floor

June 26, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

Developers deal with numerous data types on a day- to-day basis. We need to change the data type or format as per the user requirement. We use ‘SQL Server rounding function’ like SQL Round, Ceiling and Floor to round the values to the nearest numbers. We perform an arithmetic calculation on data as well. It is a challenging task to change the value of a number to an approximate number. We do not want to display decimal numbers in the application front end.

Overview of the SQL Count Distinct Function

June 26, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article explores SQL Count Distinct operator for eliminating the duplicate rows in the result set.

Get details of SQL Server Database Growth and Shrink Events

June 25, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

It is essential for the DBA to need to ensure the SQL Server database performance. Performance tuning is an open-ended task, and you need to ensure the monitoring of various database parameters.

Script SQL Server objects using DBATools

June 20, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

This article gives an overview to generate scripts for SQL Server objects with Windows PowerShell tool DBATools.

Database administrators or developers require generating scripts for SQL Server objects. We might need scripts to store a copy of object script before object change, create specific objects into other database environments such as development, UAT or non-prod environment. It is an excellent practice to keep a copy of the object before making a change to it. We can easily refer to the old script and roll back if required. Usually, we use SSMS Generate Scripts wizard to get these scripts.

Isolation levels behavior in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

June 18, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

In my previous article, Data synchronization in SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, we explored the internal data synchronization for both Asynchronous and Synchronous data commit mode. In the following image, on the secondary replica, we can see two important processes.

Automatic Seeding in Always On Availability Groups

June 18, 2019 by Rajendra Gupta

Introduction

In SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, we can add a database into an existing availability group using different methods. We get the following option in the Initial Data Synchronization wizard in SSMS.