Collation and ORDER BY decide case, accent, and text-number order; choose rules explicitly when one report needs different sorting.
Text Equality: Trailing Spaces Can Compare as Equal
Text equality can match different stored strings. Check byte length and complete representation when exact identity belongs to the contract.
SQL SERVER – Reducing Page Contention on TempDB
Page Contention on TempDB needs an identified allocation wait and server version. I check both before recommending legacy trace flags.
Slowly Changing Dimensions in Plain T-SQL
Slowly changing dimensions need explicit Type 1 and Type 2 rules; use T-SQL updates and inserts with tests for history and overlap.
Loading a Fact Table Without Blocking Reports
Loading a fact table without blocking reports calls for isolated staging, aligned partition switching, short locks, and a tested reader path.
SQL SERVER – Shrinking Database is Bad – Increases Fragmentation – Reduces Performance
Shrinking database is bad: it increases fragmentation and reduces performance. Here is a simple example with two tables that shows it step by step.
TRY_CAST: Parse Failure and Prohibited Conversion
TRY_CAST helps classify bounded integer text while preserving missing input separately. A prohibited int-to-xml request still needs error handling. A narrow text target can succeed while discarding characters.