CROSS APPLY Fundamentals: Part 1
Learn the basics of the CROSS APPLY operator with a few examples in this short piece.
2026-07-27
3,667 reads
Articles
5 T-SQL features that should already exist (2026 SQL Server wish list)
2026 T-SQL wish list covering native Parquet imports, arrays, OVERLAPS, simpler licensing, and cloud storage
2026-07-27
SQL Agent Job Automated Change Capture Process
Build a process that captures your SQL Agent job history and changes across time.
2026-07-24
1,447 reads
SQL Server Data Warehouse Concepts, Schema Design, and Implementation
A Data Warehouse acts as a centralized repository, is subject oriented, time variant and non-volatile repository. This article covers some concepts that will help you better design these structures.
2026-07-24
Can You Really Downgrade from Enterprise to Standard and Save Thousands? Here's What Happened
A real world story of how someone moved from Enterprise Edition to Standard for not only the SQL Server database engine, but also with SSRS, SSIS, and SSAS.
2026-07-22
3,229 reads
Exposing a SQL injection vulnerability you’ve never heard of
This article documents a SQL injection vulnerability I discovered in sys.sp_dbmmonitorupdate, a Microsoft-signed system stored procedure. For other SQL Server security vulnerabilities I’ve discovered, see the full series here.
2026-07-22
Connect an Azure Function to Azure SQL database Using a Managed Identity
In this article, you’ll learn step-by-step setup, Python code implementation, troubleshooting, and best practices to ensure your solution is secure and scalable.
2026-07-20
1,488 reads
Pros and Cons of Database Sharding for Performance and Maintenance
Large databases usually have a negative impact on maintenance time, scalability and query performance. For maintenance, these large single databases have to be backed up daily while the amount of actual changing data might be small. For performance, tables without correct indexes result in full table or clustered index scans. As the data grows the total query time increase linearly. How can we decrease downtime for the maintenance window for large databases and optimize the performance of daily queries?
2026-07-20
Implicit Conversions Cripple SQL Server
Learn about implicit conversions, which can dramatically affect the performance of your workload.
2026-07-17
3,224 reads
Vector search in SQL Server: VECTOR_DISTANCE, VECTOR_SEARCH, and index trade-offs
Learn how to use VECTOR_DISTANCE and VECTOR_SEARCH in SQL Server to find semantically similar data.
2026-07-17
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
Backing Up a DMK
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Backing Up a DMK
The Quiet Part
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Quiet Part
Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
See possible answers