25 Years Later: What SQLServerCentral Meant to Me
A look back at SQL Server Central after 25 years from founder Brian Knight.
Doing Good at SQL Server Central
Steve talks about some of the charitable work at SQL Server Central.
I Just Don’t Understand Why You Don’t Update SSMS.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, SQL Server Management Studio was included as part of the SQL Server installer.
Detecting Issues
How do you detect issues in your systems? Testing? Monitoring? Steve Jones has a few thoughts that we should find ways to do so before our customers.
Engineer Lessons
Steve thinks a few lessons on being a software engineer at Google are good items for anyone to think about.
Fun with JSON
Last year, I used a lot of JSON to exchange data between systems. There are several ways to extract data from a JSON file, but there is one specific, probably less-used possibility that I’d like to highlight. For one project, I received JSON files containing a variable number of parameters and their values. If I […]
Azure Functions: The Serverless Powerhouse
Today’s organization are faced with multiple conflicts for their current cloud infrastructures and which approach to go with either opting for a microservice or monolith applications. However, there are numerous difficulties with standard hosting methods.
Database Deployment with Terraform - Modules
Deploy resources in Azure using reusable code with Terraform modules.
Securing Your Databases in 2026: Best Practices for the Evolving Threat Landscape
In 2026, your approach to both applications and databases must be focused on practical and technical real-world operations and use cases rather than just hype.
Blogs
RANK() vs DENSE_RANK(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I haven’t done one of these in awhile, but I saw an article recently...
Using CAT for Testing of Data Agents
In last months one of the scenarios where you can use AI has been...
Forums
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
25 Years Later: What SQLServerCentral Meant to Me
Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years Later: What SQLServerCentral...
Doing Good at SQL Server Central
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Doing Good at SQL Server...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers