Big Data Analytics answers four kinds of questions: what happened, why it happened, what will happen next and what to do about it. This post climbs that ladder with one small business and shows each step in T-SQL window functions.
Data Ingestion: Batch Loads, Change Data Capture and Streams
Data Ingestion is how data moves from the systems that create it into the platform that analyzes it. This post compares batch loads, change data capture and event streams, and shows the captured rows from a small SQL Server table.
Open Table Formats: Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg Explained
Open Table Formats turn a folder of Parquet files into a real table with transactions, history and safe schema changes. This post shows how Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg do it with a metadata layer, how a commit stays atomic, and what time travel means.
Columnar, Graph and Spatial Databases: Three Shapes of Data
Columnar, Graph and Spatial Databases are three data models built for three kinds of questions: totals over many rows, paths through relationships, and distances between places. This post explains each one and builds all three in SQL Server 2025 with columnstore, graph tables and the geography type.
OLTP vs OLAP: Why Transactions and Analytics Need Different Designs
OLTP vs OLAP is the difference between recording what’s happening now and studying what’s already happened. This post compares the two designs, tests the same 500,000 orders as a rowstore and a columnstore table on SQL Server 2025, and shows how data moves from one side to the other.
Columnar File Formats: Why Parquet Changed Big Data
Columnar file formats store a table one column at a time, so a report reads and compresses only the columns it needs. This post compares rows and columns on a tiny table, explains how a Parquet file is laid out, and measures the size difference in SQL Server 2025.
MapReduce Explained: Map, Shuffle and Reduce Step by Step
MapReduce splits a big job into many small map tasks, moves the results by key in a shuffle, and adds them up in reduce tasks. This post walks one word count through every step, with a recreated diagram and the same idea in T-SQL.