Creating a Striped Backup Set with AI
I needed to test a striped backup, so I decided to ask the AI’s for help. This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems. The Problem...
2025-10-22
6 reads
Blog Posts
DBAs should never run SSMS under their everyday Windows account
DBAs should never run SSMS under their everyday Windows account
If you open SSMS under the same Windows identity you use for email, browsing, and chat, you bring all that...
2025-10-22 (first published: 2025-10-07)
1,057 reads
The Feedback Multiplier: How Leaders Can Turn Input into Innovation
In every organization there is a hidden currency more valuable than capital, more enduring than strategy, and more transformative than technology. That currency is feedback. Leaders who learn to...
2025-10-22 (first published: 2025-09-29)
109 reads
Disable the sa login in SQL Server (and sleep better)
Disable the sa login in SQL Server (and sleep better)If you run SQL Server in 2025 and your sa login is still usable, you’re giving attackers a giant, blinking...
2025-10-21
17 reads
Trace Flag 1448 – Lessons from a Technical Interview
In SQL Server environments where transactional replication runs alongside Always On Availability Groups (AGs), DBAs sometimes face a frustrating scenario: replication stalls when a secondary replica or subscriber is...
2025-10-21
16 reads
Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates HammerDB benchmarking for SQL Server using Docker. If you’ve ever needed to run TPC-C or...
2025-10-20 (first published: 2025-09-06)
1,402 reads
Leadership in Times of Change: Guiding Teams Through Uncertainty, Disruption, and Transformation
Change is inevitable. What separates thriving organizations from those that falter is not the scale of disruption but how leaders respond to it. In times of shifting technologies, evolving...
2025-10-20
7 reads
Scaling SQL Server 2025 Vector Search with Load-Balanced Ollama Embeddings
SQL Server 2025 introduces native support for vector data types and external AI models. This opens up new scenarios for semantic search and AI-driven experiences directly in the database....
2025-10-20 (first published: 2025-09-27)
1,358 reads
Speaking at PASS Summit 2025
In less than one month, I will be speaking not once but twice at PASS Data Community Summit 2025.
Thursday, November 20th at 1 PM I will be in the...
2025-10-20
9 reads
The End of Year Vacation Burn
It’s been a good year for me. With my sabbatical, I felt like I’ve gotten away from work quite a bit this year. I’ve had a few vacations around...
2025-10-20
13 reads
Blogs
Creating a Striped Backup Set with AI
By Steve Jones
I needed to test a striped backup, so I decided to ask the AI’s...
Trace Flag 1448 – Lessons from a Technical Interview
By gbargsley
In SQL Server environments where transactional replication runs alongside Always On Availability Groups (AGs),...
Disable the sa login in SQL Server (and sleep better)
Disable the sa login in SQL Server (and sleep better)If you run SQL Server...
Forums
Create an HTML Report on the Status of SQL Server Agent Jobs
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Create an HTML Report on...
SQLPS and syspolicy_purge_history job
The SQLPS.exe file has gone AWOL on 2 of my 4 SQL servers, ie,...
Be Wary of Data
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Be Wary of Data
Question of the Day
Locking Hierarchies
You have a table [dbo].[orders] without a Clustered Index (Heap). The table does not have any other nonclustered indexes! You rund the following command in Read Committed Isolation Level:
SELECTo_orderdate,
o_orderkey,
o_custkey,
o_storekey
FROMdbo.orders
WHEREo_orderkey = 3877;