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Daily Coping Tip

Plan a fun or exciting activity to look forward to

I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.

For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours.

Lean Coffee

I read about the concept of Lean Coffee in Making Work Visible, one of the books I set as a goal to read this year. The idea is to have an agenda less meeting, but nevertheless get some things done.

It sounds crazy, though the format makes some sense. The group takes a minute or two to write down some ideas on paper. Each person then gets two votes to place against the topics. The top rated items get discussed first for a period of time and at the end of that time, everyone votes on continuing discussion or moving on. This can repeat every few minutes.

I got the chance to experience this at the recent DevOps Enterprise Summit conference, where there were Lean Coffee breaks every day, with each having a topic that people wanted to discuss. One I participated in was fairly rigid, with the facilitator keeping to time, gently encouraging discussion, and rigorously calling for votes.

While I enjoyed that, a second one didn't use timers consistently or votes, and the meeting ended up being a rather free form discussion, which was OK, but it meandered and wandered without guidance in a way was somewhat annoying. It was a surprising experience for me, as I typically like free form discussions.

I don't know that I'd recommend Lean Coffee for all meetings, but I do like the format, and I think this can be a good way to focus on a few areas a team finds important, especially when there isn't a clear set of priorities.

I would encourage you to give it a try, especially if you get into a meeting without a clear agenda. Maybe it's something I'll try as a way to discuss and debate some topics at some event.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 Featured Contents
Stairway to SSAS Tabular

Stairway to SSAS Tabular Level 11: Partitioning

Thomas LeBlanc from SQLServerCentral

In this next level, we cover partitioning for SSAS.

Why choose Oracle?

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

Oracle has been established as one of the top database systems used in enterprises throughout the world. In this article, Cynthia Dzikiti describes her career as an Oracle application developer and covers some of the benefits of Oracle.

SQL Server Transaction Log Management eBook Download

Free eBook: SQL Server Transaction Log Management

Press Release from Redgate

When a SQL Server database is operating smoothly and performing well, there is no need to be particularly aware of the transaction log, beyond ensuring that every database has an appropriate backup regime and restore plan in place. When things go wrong, however, a DBA's reputation depends on a deeper understanding of the transaction log, both what it does, and how it works.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Top Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI questions

James Serra from James Serra's Blog

I have listed below the top questions I see from customers about Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI, and the blogs that I have written that try to answer...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Adding a Check Constraint to a Table–#SQLNewBlogger

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers. I had to do this the other day,...

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by BTylerWhite):

 

How Long is the List?

I have the following list in Python: 
dog_breeds = ["German Shepherd", "Bulldog", "Poodle", "Labrador Retreiver", "Golden Retriever",
              "Dachshund", "Affenpinscher", "Afghan Hound", "Chihauhau", "Siberian Husky",
              "Golden Retriever", "Affenpinscher"]
I need to determine how many elements exist in this dog_breeds list. How can I achieve this?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

The Questions for Change Tracking

What are the two main questions that Change Tracking in SQL Server helps you answer? (choose 2)

Answer: What rows have changed for a table?, Has a row changed?

Explanation: The two main things that Change Tracking lets you know about are:

  • What rows have changed?
  • Has a row changed?

Change tracking is lightweight and designed to help you decide if something has changed, but not all changes are tracked. Change Data Capture is used if you need all intermediate changes tracked. Ref: About Change Tracking - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/track-changes/about-change-tracking-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2016 - Administration
Moving DB file - I have Always ON setup between Server_A and Server_B (Primary server is Server_A and DR server is Server_B) I have DB called ManagementDB which has 3 Data file 2 on D drive and 1 on C drive. I need to moved Data file from C to d Drive. Since it has Always on Setup I […]
Read-only error in Primary AG replica, but the db is not read-only - Hello experts, I am trying to add db permissions (read/write) on the primary replica of an AOAG setup. For some reason I am getting this error: Failed to update database "MyDB" because the database is read-only. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 3906) I checked the MyDB options and Database Read-Only is set to False. Does anyone […]
identify sql backup strategies - how do I identify if the dbs are getting backed up (full,diff,log) without looking through sqljobs /maintenance plans etc..as they maybe getting backed up from a 3rd party tool. Any tables I can look through  
schedule a job in CMS - Is it possible to schedule a sql job in CMS ? As of now I have a query which captures data from all servers listed in CMS, but its is a manual process. Can I schedule it against multiple servers and capture that data and dump that data into  a single server/db/table.(Without using powershell or  […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
Dividing data equally in 4 sessions - Hi All I have a table which contains the transactions done by cards. Below is the table structure and sample data: create table CardTransactions(CardNo int, Transactionid int, Processed bit) Insert into CardTransactions values(1,1001,0) Insert into CardTransactions values(1,1002,0) Insert into CardTransactions values(1,1003,0) Insert into CardTransactions values(1,1004,0) Insert into CardTransactions values(1,1005,0) Insert into CardTransactions values(2,1006,0) Insert into […]
Unique value constraint among active records - I have a lookup table that implements a system-generated Id for DRI purposes.  The lookup table has columns defining the effective and obsolete dates of the record i.e. the period during which a lookup term is valid for business use.  Normally I would create a unique index on the lookup term to ensure that it […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
what does it mean for the following SQL Scripts - in a stored procedure, I found two line sql scripts "    if @@microsoftversion > 0x07320000 exec sp_MSreplraiserror 20598 " ,  what does it  "@@microsoftversion > 0x07320000"  and    "exec sp_MSreplraiserror 20598 " ? and when executing this "exec sp_MSreplraiserror 20598 ", what will be done by SQL Server ?   thanks so much!
How to encode the following dynamical SQL scripts - I use one table (call first table) field's value to update another another table (call second table) field's value, but the field of the second table is not fixed, only the first three charaters we know beforehand (it is ftbid), but the other characters from the 2nd table, the other character is from CONVERT(VARCHAR(2), b.orderdate, […]
SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL
leave entitlement and balance - Hi all I need your advise for the below case: I’ve a leave request system that users request leaves through it and it differentiate between working days, weekends  & holidays means it counts only the working days I’ve already two tables one for employees data like (name number title dept.) and the other table for […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
Migration step-by-step from SQL Server 2014 to 2019 - We are going to migrate all our SQL Servers from 2014 to 2019. Where I can find step-by-step guide before, during, and after migration? Besides Database Migration Assistant, I could not find any. We have 80+ databases, BLOB images, using AlwaysOn, replication, SSIS packages, SSRS reports, some 3rd-party tools. We will use backup/restore methodology, but […]
SQL Server 2019 - Development
Textfield comparator. - A client would like to be able to recognize similar free-texts in a text field. So based on a field find similar texts in the same column. Result could be something like a percentual equalness. Could anybody point me towards a SQL-server geared solution. Or "search words" for Google for this. The free-texts are recipe […]
Other methods of getting the true length of UTF8 String? - Something I've been playing around with lately is the UTF8 functionality in 2019, and it dawned on me that getting the "true" length a string in a UTF8 string is actually not as easy as for a "normal" varchar (and nvarchar). Let's take the following table: CREATE TABLE dbo.TestTable (VarcharString varchar(30) COLLATE Latin1_General_100_CI_AS, NvarcharString nvarchar(30) […]
Integration Services
SSIS projects connection manager driver - Hi I am starting using the project deployment mode. I am using SQL server 2019 And I see when I add a connection in connection manager for a package, I cannot see the sql server native client driver any more. What connection manager type do you recommend for SQL server connections?   Thanks
REST API through SSIS - I want to call (REST) API the "GET" command and assign the return value to the variable through SSIS. Any advice. Thanks, -ak
Hardware
Are there any free resources/ebooks to develop database design and modeling ? -   I want to develop my skills in database design and modeling. I found out some books like "The data model resource book revised edition volume 1". But they are not free. Are there any books to learn these skills.    
 

 

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