Enhance your SQL query writing skills to provide greater business value using advanced techniques such as common table expressions, window functions, and JSON
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook
Key Features
- Examine query design and performance using query plans and indexes
- Solve business problems using advanced techniques such as common table expressions and window functions
- Use SQL in modern data platform solutions with JSON and Jupyter notebooks
Book Description
SQL has been the de facto standard when interacting with databases for decades and shows no signs of going away. Through the years, report developers or data wranglers have had to learn SQL on the fly to meet the business needs, so if you are someone who needs to write queries, SQL Query Design and Pattern Best Practices is for you.
This book will guide you through making efficient SQL queries by reducing set sizes for effective results. You'll learn how to format your results to make them easier to consume at their destination. From there, the book will take you through solving complex business problems using more advanced techniques, such as common table expressions and window functions, and advance to uncovering issues resulting from security in the underlying dataset. Armed with this knowledge, you'll have a foundation for building queries and be ready to shift focus to using tools, such as query plans and indexes, to optimize those queries. The book will go over the modern data estate, which includes data lakes and JSON data, and wrap up with a brief on how to use Jupyter notebooks in your SQL journey.
By the end of this SQL book, you'll be able to make efficient SQL queries that will improve your report writing and the overall SQL experience.
What you will learn
- Build efficient queries by reducing the data being returned
- Manipulate your data and format it for easier consumption
- Form common table expressions and window functions to solve complex business issues
- Understand the impact of SQL security on your results
- Understand and use query plans to optimize your queries
- Understand the impact of indexes on your query performance and design
- Work with data lake data and JSON in SQL queries
- Organize your queries using Jupyter notebooks
Who this book is for
This book is for SQL developers, data analysts, report writers, data scientists, and other data gatherers looking to expand their skills for complex querying as well as for building more efficient and performant queries.
For those new to SQL, this book can help you accelerate your learning and keep you from making common mistakes.
Table of Contents
- Reducing Rows and Columns in Your Result Sets
- Efficiently Aggregating Data in Your Results
- Formatting Your Results for Easier Consumption
- Manipulating Your Data Results Using Conditional SQL
- Using Common Table Expressions
- Analyze Your Data Using Window Functions
- Reshaping Your Data with Advanced Techniques
- Impact of SQL Security on Query Results
- Understanding Query Plans
- Understanding the Impact of Indexes on Your Query Design
- Handling JSON Data in SQL Server
- Integrating File Data and Data Lake Content with SQL
- Organizing and Sharing Your Queries with Jupyter Notebooks
- Appendix – Preparing Your Environment
Steve Hughes is a senior director of data and analytics at 3Cloud. In this role, he focuses on growing the teams' skills and capabilities to deliver data projects with Azure. He has worked with technology for over 20 years, with much of that time spent on creating business intelligence (BI) solutions and helping customers implement leading BI and cloud solutions. He is passionate about using data effectively and helping customers understand that data is valuable and profitable. Steve has recently been diagnosed with ALS but continues to work and share with others what he has learned. Steve is also the founder of Data on Wheels where he blogs with one of his daughters on topics such as data, analytics, and work enablement.
Dennis Neer is a senior architect of data and analytics at 3Cloud. In this role, he focuses on working with clients to design Azure solutions for their data and analytic needs so that they may use that data to make business decisions based on that data. This includes using tools such as SQL Server databases, Synapse, data lakes, and Power BI. He has worked with technology for over 30 years, with 25 years in designing and building database and visualization solutions. He is passionate about data and helping businesses to understand the information contained in their data and how it can be used to make important decisions regarding their business to improve the strength of their business.
Dr. Ram Babu Singh is a Microsoft Certified Professional with a PhD in computer science. He is a lead architect of data and analytics at 3Cloud, using complex data analytics and data science solutions. He has over 20 years of experience in data science and data platforms and over 10 years of leadership experience leading data science and data platform solutions for the world's top IT consulting companies. He has been published in international journals and has a patent in his name.
