Master T-SQL: TOP instead of LIMIT, IDENTITY instead of AUTO_INCREMENT, variables with @, control flow (IF/WHILE/BEGIN/END)

Learn Window Functions: ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), DENSE_RANK() for pagination and ranking, OVER() clause with PARTITION BY

Understand Columnstore Indexes: Columnar storage for analytics (10x faster), batch mode execution, use for data warehouses

Master Temporal Tables: System-versioned tables track history automatically, AS OF queries for point-in-time, audit trails

Learn JSON Support: JSON functions (JSON_VALUE, JSON_QUERY), OPENJSON() to parse, FOR JSON to generate

Understand Always On: High availability with automatic failover, readable secondaries for read scaling, synchronous/asynchronous replication

Master T-SQL: TOP instead of LIMIT, IDENTITY instead of AUTO_INCREMENT, variables with @, control flow (IF/WHILE/BEGIN/END)

Learn Window Functions: ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), DENSE_RANK() for pagination and ranking, OVER() clause with PARTITION BY

Understand Columnstore Indexes: Columnar storage for analytics (10x faster), batch mode execution, use for data warehouses

Master Temporal Tables: System-versioned tables track history automatically, AS OF queries for point-in-time, audit trails

Learn JSON Support: JSON functions (JSON_VALUE, JSON_QUERY), OPENJSON() to parse, FOR JSON to generate

Understand Always On: High availability with automatic failover, readable secondaries for read scaling, synchronous/asynchronous replication