Identity columns have several advantages as surrogate keys in SQL. First, they are easy to create and maintain. You just need to specify the column as IDENTITY and the starting value and increment.

In this example, Transact-SQL will create a new table with all columns from the rows in "old_table" in which the last name starts with "Ja." Advertisement. Article continues below this ad.

It is also useful if you are running SQL statements from an SQL application in another SQL-based database. The second form uses a LIKE clause to create a table that has the same column names and ...

To understand how to choose the best distribution method and use distributed tables, see designing distributed tables using dedicated SQL pool in Azure Synapse Analytics.. For recommendations on the ...