I’m hosting a free webinar at MSSQLTips.com at the 19th of December 2024, 6PM UTC. The topic is about window functions, something that really interests me and that should be in the toolbox of every season SQL developer. The abstract: The gaps and islands problem is a common problem in data analysis. Some examples are: […]
Tag: sql
System Views in Microsoft Fabric – Query references an object that is not supported in distributed processing mode
I have a metadata-driven ELT framework that heavily relies on dynamic SQL to generate SQL statements that load data from views into a respective fact or dimension. Such a task is well suited for generation, since the pattern to load a type 1 SCD, type 2 SCD or a fact table is always the same. […]
dataMinds Saturday 2024 – Session Materials
It was great being at dataMinds Saturday 2024 this past weekend. A great crowd of data enthusiasts was present to learn from a bunch of local speakers (both old and new :)). I was some interesting sessions about Fabric, Purview, finding and fixing issues in a data lake with KQL, and Benni‘s great session on […]
Get your Query History in Redshift
Because my Windows machine apparently decides to install updates over night (and thus reboot my machine), it has happened that I lost the query that I was writing for Redshift in the tool DBeaver. When you work with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), you typically don’t have this issue as a temporary copy is always […]
Book Review – SQL Query Design Patterns and Best Practices
Disclaimer: The publisher – Packt – sent me a free copy of the book for the intended purpose of a review. At the time of writing, the book is yet to be released (the date is set at the 22nd of March 2023). The book SQL Query Design Patterns and Best Practices: A practical guide […]
Why Managed Identities are Awesome
For the first workdays of this new year, I had the pleasurable task of resetting a bunch of passwords. The passwords belong to Azure AD users, service principals, SQL Server users etc. and all of these are tied into the ETL process of a data warehouse. Some are used to connect to source data, others […]
Book Review – SQL Server Query Tuning and Optimization (2nd Edition)
The nice people from Packt Publishing sent me a digital copy of Benjamin Nevarez new book to review: SQL Server Query Tuning and Optimization – Optimize Microsoft SQL Server 2022 queries and applications. It says first edition on the cover, but that’s because it’s the first time this book has been published by Packt. The […]
Cool Stuff in SQL Server 2022 – IS DISTINCT FROM
I have a blog post series about some nice features in the Snowflake cloud data warehouse; one of them is about the IS [NOT] DISTINCT FROM predicate. I was excited to find out this is now also included in the T-SQL language since the SQL Server 2022 CTP 2.1 preview! You can find the official […]
Execute SQL Scripts on Snowflake using Azure Data Factory
Azure Data Factory has a new activity introduced this week (around the 10th of March 2022 for you future readers): the Script activity! This is not to be confused with the script task/component of SSIS, which allows you to execute .NET script (C# for most people, or VB if you’re Ben Weissman). No, this task […]
The GREATEST new T-SQL Function
If the title isn’t obvious enough, this blog post is about the new function GREATEST, and it’s sibling LEAST. But wait, how come there’s a new T-SQL function? There isn’t a new release of SQL Server! That’s right, those two new functions are released in Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure Synapse […]