This level takes a deeper look at how log fragmentation can affect the performance of operations that need to read the log, such as log backups, or the crash recovery process.
2025-08-27 (first published: 2013-04-17)
7,901 reads
This level will examine the most common problems and forms of mismanagement that lead to excessive growth of the transaction log.
2025-08-13 (first published: 2012-11-26)
13,586 reads
A DBA may consider switching a database to the BULK_LOGGED recovery model in the short term during, for example, bulk load operations. When a database is operating in the BULK_LOGGED model these, and a few other operations such as index rebuilds, can be minimally logged and will therefore use much less space in the log
2025-07-30 (first published: 2012-11-07)
6,038 reads
Gail Shaw is often left bewildered by the weird and wonderful data types people choose for their tables, when storing something as simple as a telephone number or a date.
2024-07-12 (first published: 2015-02-02)
705 reads
At first glance, the question of how many rows are estimated from a table variable is easy. But, is it really that simple? Well, not really. To dig into...
2020-12-23 (first published: 2020-12-15)
423 reads
At first glance, the question of how many rows are estimated from a table variable is easy. But, is it really that simple? Well, not really. To dig into...
2020-12-15
15 reads
It’s a few days into April, but not too late I hope to mention that Pluralsight is offering their entire library, free to new accounts, for the month of...
2020-04-16 (first published: 2020-04-07)
511 reads
It’s a few days into April, but not too late I hope to mention that Pluralsight is offering their entire library, free to new accounts, for the month of...
2020-04-07
8 reads
Gail Shaw issues a rallying call for the SQL Community to adopt the Scientific Method when investigating and reporting on SQL Server behavior.
2019-09-09 (first published: 2015-05-25)
612 reads
Indexes are critical to good performance. However many people don't understand how indexes well. MVP Gail Shaw provides us with an introductory article on the basics of indexing.
2019-05-30 (first published: 2009-10-26)
103,960 reads
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers