A Microsoft SQL Server community of 1,892,811 DBAs, developers and SQL Server users

This article will demonstrate what is parameter sniffing and how can it can kill performance   Read more...

If you're attending the PASS Summit in 2017, there's a Freecon day on Tuesday you can attend.  Read more...

One crucial aspect of all databases is the transaction log. The transaction log is used to write all transactions prior to committing the data to the data file. In some circumstances the transaction logs can get quite large and not knowing what is in the transaction log or how much space is being used can become a problem. So how to you determine how much of the transaction log is being used and what portions are being used?  Read more...

In the part 18, we created a Cube based on the Azure Data Warehouse. In this new chapter, we will work with the cube, create backups and show some tips to restore.  Read more...

Microsoft has added a ton of new features in SQL Server 2017, including expanded operating system support, Graph database capability, Python support, and more. Join Greg Larsen as he explores nine of these new features.  Read more...

A common thread behind the software Redgate develop is a problem or issue they’ve come across in the software development process. They then adopt the software themselves, which gives us a real understanding of the features that need to be developed further. To gain a deeper insight into SQL Clone, this interview was conducted with Joseph Woodhouse, Redgate's IT Manager, to find out about how it’s being used to implement a new database provisioning process at Redgate.  Read more...

A tale in which is detailed how I used SWITCH PARTITION to efficiently load my data and save myself from the flaming jaws of death.  Read more...

Azure Data Lake stores petabytes of data and analyzes trillions of objects in one place with no constraints. Data Lake Store can store any type of data including massive data like high-resolution video, medical data, and data from a wide variety of industries. Data Lake Store scales throughput to support any size of analytic workload with low latency. Read on to learn more.  Read more...

A SQL Server, SQL Azure and Hekaton performance bench marking application that uses patterns.  Read more...

How does one get a truly random sample of data of a certain size from a SQL Server database table. Well, there are simple non-portable tricks one can use, such as the NewID() function, but then refining those can be tricky. Take the Rand() function for a start. Can it really provide you with a truly random number? Why doesn't the TABLESAMPLE clause give you a set number of rows? Joe Celko scratches his head a bit, explains some of the issues and invites some suggestions and tricks from readers.  Read more...

Note: Published too soon, so lots of edits from the first version. Sorry for any confusion. I had a question from...  Read more...

So I had a corruption issue and I was thinking about running repair but I wanted to know what would...  Read more...