The graph database is a critically important new technology for data professionals. As a database technologist always keen to know and understand the latest innovations happening around the cutting edge or next-generation technologies, and after working with traditional relational database systems and NoSQL databases, I feel that the graph database has a significant role to […]
Quite often developers put the responsibility of the server performance on the shoulders of DBAs. But to be honest, as a developer, it is your responsibility to write code which is efficient and optimal. However, when writing code, the developer often lacks the knowledge and/or experience about SQL Server to meet this requirement. In this […]
SQL Server provides us with two methods in T-SQL to assign a value to a previously created local SQL variable. The first method is the SET statement, the ANSI standard statement that is commonly used for variable value assignment. The second statement is the SELECT statement. In addition to its main usage to form the […]
What is R R is a very popular data programing language. R is especially used in data analysis, statistics calculations, predictions, data mining and machine learning. R is used by data scientist, economist, genetic scientists, and statisticians. R has very wide usage in real life. Healthcare, finance, marketing, and manufacturing are some of them.
Relational database management systems including SQL Server are very good at processing data in sets. However, if you want to process data on row-by-row basis rather than in sets, cursors are your only choice. Unfortunately, cursors are extremely slow and so where possible should be replaced with JOINS.
Database Mail, as you would expect from its name, is a solution for sending e-mail messages from the SQL Server Database Engine to users. Using Database Mail, database applications can send e-mail messages that can, for example, contain query results or simply alert a user about an event that occurred in the database. The process […]
As a continuation to my previous article, How to use Python in SQL Server 2017 to obtain advanced data analytics, a little bit of curiosity about Deep Learning with Python integration in SQL Server led me to write this latest article. With Python running within SQL Server, you can bring the existing data and the code […]
Auditing is a key feature in any application or any system as it provides end users with better analysis for administrators. Apart from analysis, auditing can be used as a troubleshooting mechanism too. Apart from organizational reasons, there are compliance reasons for enabling auditing depending on the domain of operation. Auditing is mainly about answering […]
Description SQL Identity columns provide a convenient way to auto-number an ID column within a table without the need to manage the sequence. This convenience can save immense amounts of time, but also presents a single challenge: What happens when an identity column runs out of space within the data type chosen?
There are many ways to import data from an Excel file to a SQL Server database using: SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) the OPENROWSET and OPENDATASOURCE functions SQL Server linked servers the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard In this article, steps for importing data from an Excel file to a SQL Server database will […]
Introduction The Bulk copy program aka bcp is the console application used to export and import data from text files to SQL Server or vice versa. It is very popular because it is fast and easy to download.
Description In SQL Server, internal latch architecture protects memory during SQL operations. It ensures the consistency of memory structures with read and write operation on pages. Rudimentarily, it has two classes, buffer latches, and non-buffer latches which perform lightweight synchronization in the SQL Engine.
SQL Server Management Studio is an integrated graphical user interface tool that is used to perform wide range of administration and development tasks on the SQL Server instances, hosted locally on the user machine, remotely on a Windows or Linux server or on SQL Azure or Azure Data warehouse instances hosted in the cloud. You […]
In the previous article Commonly used SQL Server Constraints: NOT NULL, UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY, we described, in detail, the first three types of the SQL Server constraints; NOT NULL, UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY. In this article, we will discuss the other three constraints; FOREIGN KEY, CHECK and DEFAULT by describing each one briefly and […]
This article explains the SQL NOT NULL, Unique and SQL Primary Key constraints in SQL Server with examples. Constraints in SQL Server are predefined rules and restrictions that are enforced in a single column or multiple columns, regarding the values allowed in the columns, to maintain the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of that column’s data. […]
If we follow blogs and publications on the technological advancement with respect to SQL, we notice the increase in the number of references to Python, of late. Often, that makes us think: Why so much emphasis on Python these days? Isn’t knowing PowerShell scripting sufficient for the automation requirements of today? Is it the time […]
In the article on Deadlock Analysis and Prevention, we saw how deadlock occurs. We saw that SQL Server selects one of the processes involved in the deadlock as deadlock victim. In this article, we will look at the criteria on which SQL server selects a deadlock victim. Why one process is selected as deadlock victim […]
Monitoring a SQL Server database is a critical component of database administration. Ninety percent of the organizations expect the number of databases to increase over the next twelve months. An increase in data volumes can have negative effects on the availability of databases. Hence, SQL Server database monitoring is considered a critical responsibility of a […]
Introduction Following best practices, we should apply principles like segregation of duties. This implies the segregation of application environments. In particular, we might see for a given application that it incorporates at least two environments: a production environment and a non-production environment that exists for testing, Q/A, training, etc
A data warehouse has to be historically correct. This becomes an issue when data like the Product List Price for a previous year needs to be saved historically. Dimensional Modeling methodologies provide a solution for the situation. The Slowly Changing method integrated with components from SQL Server Integration Services solves the issue. This article will […]
Introduction Without a doubt, few technologies in SQL Server cause as much confusion and the spread of misinformation as indexes. This article looks at some of the most asked questions and a few that should be asked but often are not. We’ll be using SQL Server 2016 for the examples and a tool, for SQL […]
As a DBA, I am often asked to automate tasks. In addition to this, I generally work with a lot of developers that need to test with data refreshing on a regular basis. A lot of the time, I am asked to either stand up a new test environment or overwrite/refresh an existing one. Now, […]
When you define SQL Server database tables, local variables, expressions or parameters, you should specify what kind of data will be stored in those objects, such as text data, numbers, money or dates. This attribute is called the SQL Server Data Type. SQL Server provides us with a big library of system data types that […]
SQL unit testing is rising in popularity amongst database developers. The importance of Code Quality in Software Development has increased over the period of time. Everyone wants to follow coding standards and write clean code. However, to timely deliver a product to Business we end up in violating design principles, writing fewer unit tests, increasing […]
Linked servers allow to access data from another SQL Server or another data source (e.g. Excel) by using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Transact-SQL. This article will explain how to create and configure a linked server to retrieve data from an Azure SQL database. Also, we will explain how to solve some common problems/issues […]
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