One of my favorite things about going to in-person events is just the time when we're sitting around chatting, out in the hallway, over at the vendor booths, maybe in the speaker room. Any of them. Inevitably, you start to get what I would call "sea stories" (Navy & Coasties, "war stories" for the pickles, […]
This article shows the final step of an availability group creation, specifically for a distributed clusterless one.
Working across Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, I've learned that the real challenge isn’t just knowing each platform, but understanding the subtle differences in terminology, syntax, and mindset, and staying open to learning on the fly every time I jump in. The “Sacred Six” are rules that I’ve learned to live by and accept. […]
If you’ve ever had to format dates and times in SQL, you’ve probably come across one of the most jarring realities of working across platforms: every major RDBMS does it differently and sometimes confusingly. What’s a TO_CHAR() in Oracle becomes FORMAT() or CONVERT() in SQL Server, and its sort of the same in PostgreSQL… but […]
With the ever-increasing pace of the digital era, companies are continuously looking for opportunities to enhance efficiency, cut costs, and optimize operations. The most viable way to accomplish these is through Custom Automation Software Development.
This is a list of the builds for SQL Server 2022. There are other build lists available here. A list of all the builds that I can find and install on my Build VM. If you find a build not listed here, please let the webmaster know (webmaster at sqlservercentral.com). All builds are listed in reverse […]
Get a quick glimpse of using AI in SQL Server by implementing a machine learning system.
This article explores how to securely clone the master user permissions in Amazon RDS for SQL Server using a custom stored procedure, usp_rds_clone_login. It outlines a step-by-step process to generate, review, and apply a script that replicates server- and database-level access from the master user to a new login without directly exposing elevated credentials. The guide emphasizes the principle of least privilege, supports named account management, and enables transparent, auditable permission handling for DBAs and applications. Designed for secure and scalable environments, this solution enhances operational security while maintaining administrative flexibility in Amazon RDS.
There’s a moment I experience all too often in tech meetings, presentations, or vendor demos where someone starts talking, and instead of clarity, I get hit with a tidal wave of jargon: “synergizing AI-driven orchestration pipelines for real-time actionable insights using cloud-native microservices and agentic AI to serve as a digital twin.” And somewhere in […]
I am responding late to a T-SQL Tuesday invite from John Sterrett. John’s call...
It’s been forgotten about and neglected for few years but I’ve decided to dust...
I am honored to announce that I have been renewed as a Microsoft MVP...
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For the Question of the day, I am going to go deep, but try to be more clear, as I feel like I didn't give enough info last time, leading folks to guess the wrong answer... :) For today's question: You’re troubleshooting a performance issue on a critical stored procedure. You notice that a previously efficient query now performs a full table scan instead of an index seek. Upon investigating, you find that an NVARCHAR parameter is being compared to a VARCHAR column in the WHERE clause. What is the most likely cause of the query plan regression?
See possible answers