The Subtle Differences Between COALESCE and ISNULL
If you’ve written SQL for a while, you’ve likely bumped into COALESCE and ISNULL. Both are handy for dealing with NULL values in your tables, swapping them out for something useful. They might seem interchangeable at first, but they’ve got some sneaky …
[Video] Office Hours in the Home Bar
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I made myself a highball and went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:57 jrl: Do you have any advice about communicating effectively in a ful …
An Introduction to SQL Commands, Part 1
This first installment of a three-part series introduces essential SQL commands for creating, modifying, and deleting tables within SQL Server Management Studio.
A Method for Managing Hierarchies in PostgreSQL
The Postgres database management system was originally designed as object-relational. We remind why PostgreSQL is an object-relational rather than just relational database management system, and briefly discuss what kind of object-oriented features it …
Your SQL Server Needs Spring Cleaning, Too.
First things first: pick up that filthy keyboard, take it over to the trash can, turn it upside down, and give it a good, vigorous shake. Next, go to your biggest SQL Server and run: EXEC sp_BlitzIndex @GetAllDatabases = 1, @Mode = 2, @SortOrder = ‘row …
LLM Technical Editor Test – ChatGPT with a VERY wrong article
As started in part 1 of this series, I have set out to test an LLMs ability to technical edit. For my first set of tests, I am using a pair of articles I created, filled with very bad advice. The advice is the same for both articles, but what differs i …
The Fabric Modern Data Platform
This is a short series on the Modern Data Platform in Microsoft Fabric. The articles in this series are: Create Raw Zone Tables using Generative AI – In this first article on the Fabric Modern Data Platform, we look at how to use Generative AI to buil …
Securing the DevOps Pipeline Part 1: Tools and Strategies for Safer Deployments
The post Securing the DevOps Pipeline Part 1: Tools and Strategies for Safer Deployments appeared first on SQLServerCentral.
Metadata Driven Pipelines (Full Load): The Fabric Modern Data Platform
To solve a complex business problem, one needs to break the process into smaller solvable steps. Today, we are going revisit the Modern Data Platform for Fabric Warehouse. Our first problem to solve is a full data load pattern from a relational databas …
Announcing Database Frontiers: a Database Conference You Haven’t Yet Heard About
Database Frontiers is a new database conference hitting the spotlight come October 15th, 2025. Here’s everything you need to know. Preface It would be an educated guess that you spend a lot of time solving database problems – hopefully, the Simple-Talk …
Oracle’s Limited Cloud Vendor Licensing
It’s nothing new for vendors to find ways to lock in customers to their products and cloud services. Oracle recently announced it will no longer support multi-tenancy in cloud deployments outside its own ecosystem—despite this still being listed in its …
Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for April 2025
This quarter’s release contains a few advanced warnings & tools, like table input for sp_BlitzLock, new warnings about paused resumable index operations that will be deleted automatically by SQL Server 2022, and a new option to maintain carri …
New Series – Testing LLMs as Technical Editors
I spend a lot of editing articles from various authors about a wide variety of topics. I do my best to make sure everything that is posted to SimpleTalk.com is as correct as I can get it. All of my career was spent as a specialist of sorts. I spent my …
How to Remove Constraints from a SQL Server Table
The post How to Remove Constraints from a SQL Server Table appeared first on SQLServerCentral.
Creating a Date Dimension (Calendar Table) in SQL Server
Introduction A calendar or date dimension table is essential for data analysis and reporting. It allows users to perform operations like calculating business days between two dates or analyzing data over time (e.g., year-over-year, month-to-month). In …