Find Skew in Distributed Tables
The SQL Server PDW (Parallel Data Warehouse) is a beast of a machine. Spreading workload across multiple nodes inside the PDW provides a huge performance gain over a traditional SQL Server; however, ...
View ArticleIs it a good idea to use a temp table? Well, maybe.
I remember sitting in a session several years ago listening to the speaker talk about some bad habits that SQL Server professionals fall into and, therefore, create less than optimum T-SQL code. ...
View ArticleCreating a practice SQL Server Cluster in virtual machines always has surprises
Over the past few evenings, I have set up a virtual machine SQL Server cluster from scratch for my clustering pre-con in Nashville next week, meaning that I started with one Windows 2008 R2 ...
View ArticleImplementing Security With SSAS
Pragmatic Works just published a video on their YouTube channel put together by yours truly on implementing security in your SQL Server Analysis Services cube . The video covers ...
View ArticleDon't get left behind: Learn to use LAG
Two of the most exciting developments in the T-SQL world are the enhancements to the OVER clause and the new analytic functions. These particular enhancements will enable us to write code to solve ...
View ArticleT-SQL 2012 slids and code
Here are the files for the October 23rd Training on the Ts Session.
View ArticleT-SQL 2012 slides and code for Oct 23
Here are the slides and code for the October 23 Training on the Ts session.
View ArticleWhere do you rank? How to use PERCENT_RANK and CUME_DIST
The last couple of years in the US have been marked by many discussions of numbers, to be more specific, percentages. It started with the 99% protests and, most recently, has included the ...
View ArticlePaging with SQL Server 2012
One of the new T-SQL features is a new way to page results. This allows you to skip a number of rows and view a given number of rows. For example, when you do a search on Amazon for SQL Server ...
View ArticleManipulating Files with SSIS
One of the most common reasons to use SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is to import data from or export data to text files. Maybe the data in these files is delimited by pipes (|) or commas. ...
View ArticleError Code 0xC020907F - The Conversion returned status value 2 - error code...
I finally finished creating my flat file test data for a series of SSIS practice exercises. While trying to create the finished project to break it down into smaller problems I ran into this error ...
View ArticleUsing FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE
I have written a couple of blog entries about the new T-SQL functionality introduced with SQL Server 2012. Today, I would like to talk about two more functions: FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE(). ...
View ArticleHow to flatten data using the Pivot Transform in SSIS.
The Pivot Transform is a very powerful tool but often overlooked and isn't the first thing to come to mind when you need it most. Imagine you have a table that has an employee listing for each type ...
View ArticleTwo more analytical functions: PERCENTILE_CONT and PERCENTILE_DISC
I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the new analytic functions introduced with SQL Server 2012. I have two more to talk about: PERCENTILE_DISC and PERCENTILE_CONT. Previously, I covered CUME_DIST ...
View ArticleUsing LEFT JOIN: Watch out for surprises!
Today I’d like to talk to you a bit about LEFT OUTER JOINs and what to watch out for. LEFT OUTER JOIN, or LEFT JOIN as I usually type it, returns all of the qualifying rows from the table on the ...
View ArticleNew Year's Resolutions
It is common at the end of the year to look back over the previous 12 months and think about what one has accomplished in professional and personal areas of life. We humans like to divide time up ...
View ArticleWorking with Slowly Changing Dimensions
One of the most challenging aspects of data warehouse ETL is handling slowly changing dimensions (SCD). First, you must determine what type of changes are required for each dimension attribute. Will ...
View ArticleROW_NUMBER and TOP
I wanted to point out some behavior to watch out for when you are working the ROW_NUMBER function along with TOP. Here is a query on the SalesOrderHeader table in AdventureWorks along with the ...
View ArticleIt's not you; it's me.
It’s not you; it’s me. Sometimes dealing with data, especially data you are not familiar with, feels like detective work. I ran into two situations lately that took a bit of digging to figure out ...
View ArticleOUTPUT
The OUTPUT clause, which has been around since SQL Server 2005, is a nifty little feature that lets you save the values of the rows you have just modified. You can just return this information or ...
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