SQL Bits 2025 Wrap
SQL Bits 2025 was amazing, as always. It’s been my favorite conference to attend, with lots of friends, a family atmosphere, and some amazing speakers from whom I learn...
2025-06-22
3 reads
Blog Posts
A New Word: Lackout
lackout – n. the sudden awareness that you’re finally over someone, noticing that the same voice that once triggered a cocktail of emotions now evokes nothing at all –...
2025-06-21
4 reads
Exploring the Next Gen General Purpose Tier in Azure SQL Managed Instance
In a recent video, I took a hands-on look at the Next Gen General Purpose service tier in Azure SQL Managed Instance—and it brings some exciting advancements to the...
2025-06-21 (first published: 2025-06-19)
9 reads
Simplify Kubernetes Security With Kyverno and OPA Gatekeeper
Here’s how these tools can make Kubernetes security easier and help you avoid common pitfalls.Image from haalkab on Pixabay.Kubernetes is hands-down the go-to tool for managing containerized applications, yet it...
2025-06-21
1 reads
ColumnStore Indexes: The Secret to Fast SQL Queries
Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server – A Practical Guide with Real-World Examples 
What Are Columnstore Indexes? Unlike traditional row-based indexes, Columnstore Indexes organize and store data by...
2025-06-20 (first published: 2025-06-18)
82 reads
Cyber Scams and Operation Shamrock
Erin West gave the keynote for the 2025 Techno Security & Digital Forensics East conference on cyber scams. How bad is it? Well, according to the Internet Crime Complaint...
2025-06-20 (first published: 2025-06-06)
259 reads
Delta Lake over Spark Connect
All Spark Connect Posts
I have just finished an update for the spark connect dotnet lib that contains the DeltaTable implementation so that we can now use .NET to maintain...
2025-06-20
6 reads
Easily query your GitHub Contribution activity
For a variety of reasons, including your Microsoft MVP activity reports, you might want to summarize your GitHub activity across multiple repos. For contributors to Microsoft open-source docs on GitHub,...
2025-06-20 (first published: 2025-06-05)
241 reads
Generating Random Strings with GenAI
One of the things I’ve been experimenting with in AI is taking things other people do and seeing how well the AI works. In this case, I took a...
2025-06-20
2 reads
Heading to SQL Bits 2025
I’ll be at SQL Bits tomorrow, Saturday Jun 20, 2025 for the final day of the conference. I wasn’t selected to speak, but since I’m in Cambridge next week...
2025-06-20
3 reads
Blogs
SQL Bits 2025 Wrap
By Steve Jones
SQL Bits 2025 was amazing, as always. It’s been my favorite conference to attend,...
Simplify Kubernetes Security With Kyverno and OPA Gatekeeper
Here’s how these tools can make Kubernetes security easier and help you avoid common...
A New Word: Lackout
By Steve Jones
lackout – n. the sudden awareness that you’re finally over someone, noticing that the...
Forums
Shades and Reflecting on SQLBits and the Bright Future of Data
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Shades and Reflecting on SQLBits...
Merge techniques
In Azure SQL DB, i want to merge records from the staging table to...
SSRS error: The Value for the image 'Image1' has a constant value...
Full error message: SSRS error: The Value for the image 'Image1' has a constant...
Question of the Day
Adding Defaults
I have a table, called dbo.logger, in SQL Server 2022. I decide to add two new columns to this table with this code.
ALTER TABLE dbo.logger ADD CreateDate DATETIME CONSTRAINT dfGetDate DEFAULT GETDATE() GO ALTER TABLE dbo.logger ADD ModifyDate DATETIME DEFAULT dfGetDate GOWhat happens when I run these two batches? See possible answers