Deciphering Data Architectures: When to Use a Warehouse, Fabric, Lakehouse, or Mesh

As discussed in my blog and book “Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh” (Amazon), organizations are often challenged with...

SQL Data Type Conversions: Your Key to Clean Data & Sharp Queries

If you're a data analyst juggling varied datasets, mastering SQL data type conversions isn't just handy—it's crucial. Whether you’re making different data types play nice together or boosting query...

SQL Server Logins vs. Users: Why You Really Need to Know the Difference

The Two-Layer Model Explained “We added them to the database, but they still can’t connect.” Sound familiar? That’s the kind of confusion SQL Server’s two-layer security model creates when...

Using AI to Test a SQL Query

Someone sent me this code. WITH p AS ( SELECT ID, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ID ASC) AS RN FROM wp_posts WHERE post_parent = 94341; ) UPDATE p SET...

Your SQL Starting Line: Best Free Databases for Beginners

Wondering which database to tackle first? I’ve got the lowdown on the top free choices for anyone new to SQL, and I’ll tell you exactly why they’re stellar for...

Query Hints and Estimated Plans

I’m working on an update to my Query Performance Tuning book for SQL Server 2025 and I found myself wondering, will a query hint be immediately apparent in an...

SQL Server Login Types: Knowing the Difference Really Matters

If your SQL Server has both SQL and Windows logins and you’re not sure why, you’re not alone. Many IT teams without a dedicated DBA bump into this sooner...

Stack Overflow & AI

I won’t try to pretend otherwise, I’ve had some mixed feelings about Stack Overflow for a long time. I think the concept of the place, ask a question, get...

T-SQL Tuesday #186 Roundup - Managing Agent Jobs

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this month’s T-SQL Tuesday!

Here’s a roundup of the posts.

Vertically scaling SQL Server online in Kubernetes

One of the new features in Kubernetes v1.33 is the ability to resize CPU and memory resources for containers online, aka without having to recreate the pod the container...