In this free eBook, Kalen Delaney explains how Microsoft's new In-memory OLTP engine works. In her book, learn how to use lock- and latch-free data structures to allow non-blocking data processing, and find out how to migrate existing tables to Hekaton.  Read more...

Tim Smith shares some ideas about how to handle and alert on irregular data coming from APIs when loading your database.  Read more...

Protecting the keys used for encrypion can really matter for companies, and in today's complex world, that can be difficult. Monitoring becomes important to helping here.  Read more...

Read about the Restore Genie and the new support for fork points, Azure and Multiple Concurrent Restores.   Read more...

Power BI allows you to connect directly to the data just as if it were a “standard” connection, and modify and extend the data to support analytics. By using DirectQuery, you can build reports based on extremely large datasets where re-importing data not a practical solution. It also allows you to do data aggregations on the server. There are, of course, restrictions as well but it is nevertheless a worthwhile technique to use where appropriate. Adam Aspin explains all.  Read more...

Steve Jones thinks version control is important, even for databases.  Read more...

this article describes about creating partitions on our existing Tables and also gives details about how to create rolling partition to support new data  Read more...

To survive the inevitable downturns in the IT industry, Phil Factor argues that a IT manager needs to take time to maintain technical skills. It is not enough to understand development; you have to be able to do it.  Read more...

Arshad Ali takes a look at traditional analytics architecture, the challenges it faces, and how the newly introduced Real-time Operational Analytics feature overcomes those challenges.  Read more...

We've all heard that definitive statement: "Avoid using cursors." But, in my opinion, what really should be conveyed is: "Avoid using row-by-row operations when possible."  Read more...

What things impress you most about potential candidates. This week Steve Jones asks the question to try and understand what types of activities data professionals might consider.  Read more...

Gerg Robidoux demonstrates a couple of methods for determining which version of SQL Server you're running, as well as what service pack or hotfix is installed.  Read more...

Today we have a guest editorial as Steve is traveling. Ben Kubicek notes that sometimes it is hard for technical people to communicate well.   Read more...

This article introduces the concept of the Calendar table to SQL newcomers and illustrates use of a few columns they might not have imagined.  Read more...

So you've decided to use Azure SQL Database. You head for the portal and are suddenly faced with a number of questions. Sure, the choices you make have a number of repercussions, but what are they? Murilo Miranda provides a simple guide to get started.  Read more...

In this second level of the Stairway, Phil looks at where we go to find information about objects, using triggers as the example.  Read more...

Amateurs practice until they can get something right. Professionals practice until they don't get things wrong. How should we handle our deployments?  Read more...

Every day, out in the various online forums devoted to SQL Server, and on Twitter, the same types of questions come up repeatedly: Why is this query running slowly? Why is SQL Server ignoring my index? Why does this query run quickly sometimes and slowly at others? My response is the same in each case: have you looked at the execution plan?  Read more...

In many cases Azure SQL Database offers an economically and functionally viable alternative to SQL Server deployments. However, there are also scenarios where we might discover that rather than serving as a replacement, it provides synergy, working side by side with your on-premises databases. One of technologies that illustrate this paradigm is Stretch Database, introduced in SQL Server 2016. Marcin Polichtdescribes its basic characteristics and reviews its implementation steps in this article.  Read more...

In this post, I’m going to talk an issue that I found when creating an availability group listener by using SQL Server Management Studio's Add Listener. This article helps you to resolve the issue.   Read more...