If you’ve never used SQL Server Profiler, you truly don’t know what your missing. And that statement has an intentional double meaning. You don’t know what a powerfully informative tool you’re missing, and you really don’t know what’s going on inside your SQL Server box either. Once you try it…

There have been quite a few posts in the SQL Server community recently announcing the Call for Nominations for the upcoming PASS Board of Directors elections. Thomas LaRock, Andy Warren, and Kevin Kline, among others have chimed in on the subject.

Despite the obvious risk of having…

If you’ve worked with Microsoft SQL Server for any length of time, you’re probably already aware that SQL Server uses locks to control access to database objects such as rows, pages, partitions, and tables.

But did you know that SQL Server also creates a shared lock for every connection to…

When you think about it, most of us in the IT field are paid to solve problems. Sure there are some routine tasks that we do that don’t really require us to think a lot. But for the most part, I’m convinced that we solve problems for a living.

Do…

If you regularly read SQL Server or other technology blogs, you know that the blogs can be a wonderful way to stay connected. You can learn about the latest innovations in the technology, you can keep abreast of the recent services packs and vulnerabilities, you can even learn of techniques…

In a recent blog, I shared some of the natural but sometimes unanticipated consequences of adding DISTINCT to a SELECT statement. Adding DISTINCT ensures that you don’t have duplicated rows in your result set, but that assurance comes at a price. Performance is typically impacted negatively when you add DISTINCT…

Over the past three posts in this series entitled “Revive your User Group”, I’ve shared some of best practices that I’ve learned over the years for keeping a technical user group going. If you haven’t read those posts already, I’d encourage you to go back and read those before continuing…