7 min read
Slowly Changing Dimensions Without Corrupting Your Facts
Should last year's revenue move when a customer changes segment? Pick an SCD type per column, write a replay-safe Type 2 MERGE, and join facts correctly.
SQL
42 articles
8 min read
DiskANN in Azure SQL Is GA: Do You Still Need a Separate Vector Store?
DiskANN vector indexes are now GA in Azure SQL and Fabric SQL. When embeddings belong next to your rows, and when Azure AI Search still wins.
6 min read
The Grain of a Table: Declare It Before the First Join
Grain is what one row of a table means. Most wrong numbers come from a join or aggregation that quietly changed it. How to declare grain and test it.
1 min read
Snowflake Cortex: AI Functions in the Data Cloud
Snowflake Cortex makes AI accessible through familiar SQL without data movement.
1 min read
Natural Language to SQL: Building Text-to-SQL Systems
Text-to-SQL democratizes data access by enabling natural language queries.
1 min read
Fabric Databases Preview: Relational Databases in Microsoft Fabric
Fabric Databases bring operational database workloads into the unified Fabric platform, with automatic integration to OneLake.
1 min read
Query Performance Tuning in Microsoft Fabric
1. Filter early : Push filters as close to data source as possible 2. Use appropriate joins : Broadcast small tables 3. Enable AQE : Adaptive Query…
1 min read
Copilot for SQL in Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse
Copilot for SQL transforms natural language into T-SQL queries. Today I'm exploring how to leverage AI for data warehouse development in Fabric.
1 min read
The ai_query Function: Custom LLM Calls in Databricks SQL
The aiquery() function enables custom LLM interactions directly in SQL. Unlike specialized functions, it allows you to craft any prompt and get intelligent…
1 min read
SQL AI Functions in Databricks: LLMs Meet SQL
Databricks SQL AI functions bring large language model capabilities directly into SQL queries. Process text, generate insights, and enrich data without…
1 min read
Natural Language to SQL: Building Intelligent Query Interfaces
Natural language to SQL (NL2SQL) transforms how users interact with databases. This guide covers implementation strategies, from simple approaches to…
1 min read
Query Performance Optimization in Microsoft Fabric
Query performance is where UX and cost meet. My practical approach is to measure user-facing latency, inspect query plans, and prioritise optimisations that…
1 min read
Cross-Database Queries in Fabric: Unified Data Access
Tomorrow we'll explore Query Insights for monitoring and optimization. Cross Database Queries OneLake Shortcuts Security Model
1 min read
T-SQL in Fabric: Patterns and Best Practices
If you're coming to Fabric Warehouse from a SQL Server or Azure SQL Database background, the T-SQL compatibility is reassuring — CTEs, window functions…
1 min read
LLM-Powered SQL Generation: Patterns and Practices
LLM-powered SQL generation democratizes data access. With proper validation and safety measures, it enables anyone to query databases using natural language.
1 min read
Mastering the Query Editor in Azure Data Studio
The query editor in Azure Data Studio provides everything needed for efficient SQL development.
1 min read
Getting Started with Azure Data Studio
Azure Data Studio offers a lightweight, customizable interface that combines the best features of modern code editors with database-specific functionality.
1 min read
Leveraging MySQL 8.0 Features on Azure
MySQL 8.0 features significantly enhance your application capabilities on Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server.
2 min read
Databricks SQL: Analytics Warehousing on the Lakehouse
Databricks SQL offers: SQL Endpoints : Serverless compute for SQL queries Query Editor : Web based SQL IDE Dashboards : Built in visualization and reporting…
1 min read
Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools: Performance Tuning Guide
These optimizations can dramatically improve dedicated SQL pool performance while reducing resource consumption.
1 min read
Azure Arc-Enabled Data Services: Run Azure Data Anywhere
Arc-enabled data services bring cloud-native database capabilities to any environment. Whether you need SQL Server or PostgreSQL, you can run managed…
2 min read
Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool Best Practices
Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool (formerly Azure SQL Data Warehouse) is the massively parallel processing (MPP) engine for structured, petabyte-scale analytical…
2 min read
Azure Synapse Serverless SQL Pools for Big Data Analytics
Synapse Serverless SQL Pool is the query engine that turned Azure Data Lake into an ad-hoc analytics platform—you write T-SQL, point it at files in ADLS…
1 min read
Azure Data Factory Stored Procedure Activity: Database Logic in Pipelines
The Stored Procedure Activity bridges the gap between data movement and data transformation, enabling complex database logic to be orchestrated as part of…
1 min read
Azure SQL Automatic Tuning: Self-Healing Database Performance
Azure SQL's Automatic Tuning is the machine learning system that acts on Query Store data to make index and query plan decisions that would otherwise…
1 min read
Query Store Deep Dive: Your Database's Flight Recorder
Query Store transforms database performance troubleshooting from guesswork into data-driven analysis, making it an indispensable tool for maintaining…
1 min read
Intelligent Query Processing in Azure SQL: Automatic Performance Optimization
IQP represents a significant step toward self-tuning databases, reducing the manual effort required to optimize query performance while automatically…
1 min read
Azure SQL Database Serverless: Auto-Scaling and Auto-Pause for Variable Workloads
Serverless is perfect for dev/test environments, infrequently used applications, and workloads with predictable quiet periods. For consistent…
1 min read
Mastering Azure SQL Elastic Pools for Cost-Effective Multi-Tenant Solutions
The key benefit of elastic pools is resource sharing. If you have 100 databases that each spike at different times, you don't need to provision for 100…
1 min read
Azure SQL Hyperscale: The Ultimate Database Scaling Solution
Traditional database architectures couple compute and storage tightly together. Hyperscale breaks this coupling by introducing a distributed storage…
1 min read
Databricks SQL Analytics is Now Generally Available
Databricks SQL Analytics provides: Native SQL interface to query Delta Lake tables SQL Endpoints with auto scaling compute Built in visualization and…
2 min read
Azure SQL Managed Instance: Migration Patterns and Best Practices
Azure SQL Managed Instance is the SQL Server target I recommend most for lift-and-shift migrations from on-premises SQL Server. It's PaaS—no OS to patch…
2 min read
Azure Arc Data Services: Azure SQL and PostgreSQL Anywhere
Arc data services let you run Azure-managed databases on your own infrastructure while using Azure tools for management.
1 min read
Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools for Enterprise Data Warehousing
Dedicated SQL pools distribute data across 60 distributions for parallel processing: Control node : Orchestrates queries and manages metadata Compute nodes…
7 min read
Databricks SQL Analytics in Preview: What to Test Before You Commit
SQL Analytics on Azure Databricks is in public preview. Here is what it is, how to pilot it properly, and when Synapse or Power BI alone is the better fit.
8 min read
Synapse Serverless SQL After GA: Designing a Lake Query Layer
How I'd structure Synapse serverless SQL now it's GA: a user database, credentials, views over the lake, CETAS, and habits that keep the per-TB bill small.
7 min read
Tamper-Evident Audit Trails in Azure SQL Database
How to make tampering detectable in Azure SQL Database with temporal tables, a T-SQL hash chain, auditing, and immutable blob storage.
1 min read
Azure SQL Hyperscale: Massive Scale SQL
There's a moment in any growing SaaS where someone runs spspaceused and the room goes quiet—the database is approaching the 4 TB ceiling and the migration…
1 min read
Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools (Preview): Enterprise Data Warehousing
Note: While dedicated SQL pools are mature (evolved from Azure SQL DW), the Synapse unified experience is still in preview.
1 min read
Azure SQL Security Features: Protect Your Data
Encrypt sensitive columns—keys never exposed to SQL Server. Azure SQL security is comprehensive—use all layers for maximum protection.
1 min read
Azure Synapse Serverless SQL (Preview): Query Your Data Lake
A second Synapse-preview note, on what I think is the genuinely new idea in the platform: serverless SQL. Point T-SQL at parquet, CSV, or JSON in your data…
10 min read
Azure SQL Elastic Pools: When Pooling Saves Money and When It Doesn't
How to size an Azure SQL Database elastic pool for database-per-tenant SaaS, measure tenant load first, and spot the workloads where pooling costs more.