Analytic SQL in SQL Server 2014/2016

Introduction

I.1. Motivation

Nowadays, data analysis is a skill that is in high demand in order to develop indicators and metrics to monitor our information systems. In order to pursue this mission, several methods, techniques and tools have been developed to cover this need in various aspects.

Database Management Systems (DBMS), along with their querying language, Structured Query Language (SQL), are considered a very important path in data analysis. Based on analytic queries directly executed on the server side, a wide range of indicators can be developed without going through intermediate application layers.

Since its invention in the 1980s, SQL has demonstrated its dominance in data management. According to a study conducted by Indeed¹, SQL has the highest ranking among skills sought by IT talent researchers.

Figure I.1 shows the position of SQL in relation to other computer languages.

The spread of SQL is explained by its characteristics of simplicity, high performance and diversity. Indeed, this language, which was previously designed for the definition and manipulation of data, has now become essential for analyzing this data.

Figure I.1. Number of Indeed job offers by programming language (January 2019)

I.2. Outline of the work

This book, composed of four chapters, studies SQL as a tool for data management and analysis.

Although the concepts of this language are ...