Founded by Data Platform MVP, Randolph West, Born SQL provides specialist SQL Server services, upgrades, on-site support and disaster recovery services in western Canada. Allow us to identify what’s hurting your database environment, implement changes with little to no downtime and keep your server running smoothly.
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Canada Day 2020
It’s Canada Day here, the commemoration of the country’s confederation in 1867. Given events over the last few months such as the worldwide pandemic, followed by a number of politically-motivated movements for change across the United States of America and other countries, it’s a good idea to reflect on what database design might look like
-> Continue reading Canada Day 2020
Unsupported but working versions of SQL Server on Windows Server 2019
One of my hobbies is trying to break technology so that you don’t have to. I don’t consider myself a professional or hobbyist hacker, though if the shoe fits… Last year when Windows Server 2019 was released I wanted to see which versions of SQL Server I could run on it, testing more the unwritten
-> Continue reading Unsupported but working versions of SQL Server on Windows Server 2019
How SQL Server stores data types: UNIQUEIDENTIFIER
This week we’re looking at how the database engine stores GUIDs (globally unique identifiers), specifically known as UNIQUEIDENTIFIER in SQL Server. If you would like to read about storage of other data types, here are the previous posts in the series: Bit columns Dates and times Integers and decimals Money Floating points What is a
-> Continue reading How SQL Server stores data types: UNIQUEIDENTIFIER
How SQL Server stores data types: floating points
In this post we are looking at how SQL Server stores floating point values (FLOAT and REAL). If you’d like to read the previous posts in this series of how SQL Server stores data types, you can do so here: Bit columns Dates and times Integers and decimals Money Floating point values If an integer
-> Continue reading How SQL Server stores data types: floating points
How should I store currency values in SQL Server?
On Twitter, Michael Dyrynda writes: ⚠️ Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever store currency as
-> Continue reading How should I store currency values in SQL Server?
How SQL Server stores data types: money
In this post we look at how SQL Server stores currency values using the MONEY and SMALLMONEY data types. If you’d like to read the previous posts in this series of how SQL Server stores data types, here’s what we’ve got so far: Bit columns Dates and times Integers and decimals 🎶 It’s a rich
-> Continue reading How SQL Server stores data types: money
An insidious form of SQL injection
As longtime readers know, I am also a software developer (we can’t call them engineers in Canada for legal reasons). I took over a complex codebase last year in a field I’m unfamiliar with, and have been working on features and improvements since then. This week I decided that it was time to rename a
-> Continue reading An insidious form of SQL injection
How SQL Server stores data types: integers and decimals
This week we’re going to look at how numbers are stored. This post will cover integers (TINYINT, SMALLINT, INT, BIGINT), and decimals (DECIMAL, which is the same as NUMERIC). If you’d like to read the previous posts in this series of how SQL Server stores data types, here’s what we’ve covered: Bit columns Dates and
-> Continue reading How SQL Server stores data types: integers and decimals
Negative identity values don’t suck
A quick(er) post this week, in response to Greg Low’s blog post from a few weeks ago titled “Don’t start identity columns or sequences with large negative values.” Greg writes that you shouldn’t use large negative values in a table, because… it’s hard to read them, I guess? And also they don’t compress well. I
-> Continue reading Negative identity values don’t suck
PASS Summit 2020 pre-con time
In 2018, I entered Speaker Idol at the PASS Summit, and because I forgot to start my timer I was disqualified for running over the five-minute limit (say “five-minute limit” fast ten times in a row). I also took part in promotion for a book my friend Melody spearheaded, where all proceeds went to charity.
-> Continue reading PASS Summit 2020 pre-con time