Overview In SQL Server, indexing is a technique used to improve the performance of queries by reducing the amount of data that SQL Server needs to scan. You can think of it like a table of contents in a book—it helps SQL Server find data more quickly. In this article, we will cover the following […]
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-07)
4,222 reads
Evolution of code The thing with any bit of code that has been around for a while, is that when change comes along, the tendency is to cater for the change by adding new stuff, while nothing gets taken away. Some stuff has definitely been taken away from this Date Dimension, but some historical artefacts […]
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-05)
3,024 reads
Introduction Sometimes we face the scenario in an enterprise environment that the database in SQL Server Always On Availability Group (AOAG) has high concurrency read and write access from application servers. If we keep using the one network interface card for both network traffic of database connections from application servers and database mirroring between AOAG […]
2025-09-01 (first published: 2023-05-08)
5,963 reads
Helping people solve T-SQL problems is one of my favorite hobbies. Someone messaged me the other day with a complex query that was almost complete except for one issue. He needed to perform a LEFT OUTER JOIN but had to filter based on a value from the right table. However, when he added the filter, SQL removed rows from the left table. The task was to decide where to place the SQL predicate: in the ON or WHERE clause.
2025-09-01
Learn about delayed durability in SQL Server and how it might help you with a heavily loaded server.
2025-08-29
8,383 reads
In Part 2, we shift focus from theory to practice. We will explore how organizations can harmoniously integrate both practi: the agility of DevOps and the resilience of SRE. During integration, it requires deliberate changes to culture, tooling, metrics, and collaboration patterns.
2025-08-29
Here's a teaser about Azure SQL Managed Instance, which isn't quite PaaS or IaaS, but isn't as locked down as you might think. This is the introduction to a three part series to follow.
2025-08-27 (first published: 2025-06-18)
3,725 reads
We are deploying a new application that uses PostgreSQL database. My manager has asked me to design high availability into the implementation. As a SQL Server database administrator, I’ve been managing PostgreSQL databases for a while. However, I’m not sure which high availability options to implement. What are the different high availability options for PostgreSQL?
2025-08-27
Columnstore indexes are a powerful tool for storing analytic data directly in SQL Server. This feature has improved in every version of SQL Server since their inception over ten years ago, and SQL Server 2025 is no exception!
2025-08-25
Learn about the TABLESAMPLE option in T-SQL and uncover some of the pitfalls of assuming this works as you think it does.
2025-08-22
2,118 reads
By Brian Kelley
There's a great article from MIT Technology Review about resetting on the hype of...
By Steve Jones
etherness – n. the wistful feeling of looking around a gathering of loved ones,...
By Steve Jones
A customer was asking about tracking logins and logouts in Redgate Monitor. We don’t...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Microsoft SQL Year in...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
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What does this code return in SQL Server 2025+? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
SELECT UNISTR('Hello 4E16754C') AS 'A Classic';
A: 
B: 
See possible answers