Guest Columnist: Tony Davis

The next time you are tempted to hammer a performance problem with hardware, why not instead invest that time in hammering and refining your SQL queries? There are rich rewards to be had.  Read more...

Microsoft is very willing to lend its ear to new feature requests, but sometimes forgets to finish off the ones we've got.  Read more...

The Maintenance Plan wizard offers a quick and simple route to make sure essential database maintenance tasks are performed and scheduled. However, it needs to be used with a lot of care, and is no substitute for the judgment, experience and common sense of a flesh and blood DBA.  Read more...

The wording of the statement about MySQL that came out from Oracle after the merger was downbeat. The implication was "Oh no! Another Blooming Database to deal with". But surely they don't plan to just let it drift?  Read more...

Tony speculates on how a good DBA knows when to be... diplomatic.  Read more...

It's a holiday weekend, but for some DBA's it's hard to escape the unwanted clutches of IT...  Read more...

Tony Davis explains his theory on why developers and DBAs listen to very different types of music, while working, and offers his list of "classic tracks" for all DBAs.  Read more...

Over the past five or so years, encouraging progress has been made with regard to testing .NET application code...I wish I could say that the same progress had been made with testing SQL.  Read more...

Virtualization, and use of the 'cloud', will be essential to the deployment of new applications, but will existing applications will be quite so amenable?  Read more...

For many years now we always seem to have been on the verge of the revolution in object databases, without it ever quite transpiring. Why is this?  Read more...

T-SQL is not a language to be admired from a distance for its grace, sophistication and integrity. It is a tool designed to allow "normal" developers and DBAs to build database business applications as smoothly and efficiently as possible.   Read more...

Instead of piling on more, often increasingly complex, tools, Tony believes what is needed is a clear roadmap and methodology for systematically addressing SQL Server Performance issues.  Read more...

Tools expand, some might say bloat, at an alarming rate and it's often the case that, in amongst all the clutter, the most valuable features somehow elude us.   Read more...

The number of tools for troubleshooting SQL Server performance problems has recently expanded at a dizzying rate. Is the latest one any reason to get excited?  Read more...

During a "difficult period", a developer often sinks from view. When things are going well, suddenly they are the gunslinger, the hotshot. The DBA often looks on wistfully. For him, the "fame trajectory" seems to work in reverse.  Read more...

Despite my misgivings about the fall from favor of technology books, I was heartened to hear from the developers at Red Gate that the classic books on the art of programming are still important to them. What are the equivalent books for DBAs?  Read more...

It is ingrained in many developers and DBAs to keep transactions in SQL Server "as short as possible". Why does this mindset exist? Does it imply a deep-seated lack of confidence in the scalability of SQL Server's locking and concurrency models?  Read more...

Many of the concepts behind Domain Driven Design are noble and valid but the silo-based approach to development that inevitably springs from this philosophy gives Tony Davis cause for concern.   Read more...

In the Oracle world, great importance is attached to "instrumenting" your application code. However, it seems not to be an issue that is much discussed in SQL Server. Tony Davis wonders why...  Read more...

As a developer, DBA or manager, you may not really want to know all about XML, replication or Reporting Services, but if your next project uses one or more of these technologies heavily then the best place to start is with the 'jungle roof' view of each topic that this Crib Sheet compendium provides.  Read more...