Handling Tricky Data Migrations during State-based Database Deployments

This article demonstrates how to use a 'state' approach to database source control, when the nature of the database changes cause you to hit difficulties with migrating existing data. These difficulties happen when the differences are such that it is impossible for any automated script to make the changes whilst preserving existing data.

SQL Server Management Studio is as Relevant as Ever

In this Simple Talk editorial Kendra Little discusses how SSMS is as relevant as ever.

Getting Started with SQL Server Azure Container Instances ACI

Learn how to quickly deploy a new SQL Server instance on Azure using Azure Container Instances ACI.

SQL Compare 14 now available on Linux

The latest version of SQL Compare now offers a Command Line Interface on Linux for the first time. Now teams can benefit from the industry standard tool for comparing and deploying SQL Server databases, whether they choose to work on Windows, Linux, or both.

A Spectacular Case of 100% CPU Caused by Online Reindexing

An investigation of a serious performance issue during online re-indexing on a production server leads us to

interesting discoveries and solutions.

Implementing SQL Server Integration Services with Azure Data Factory

Azure SQL Database, unlike its on-premises counterparts, restricted its integration capabilities to those implemented directly by the database engine. To remediate this shortcoming, Microsoft provided equivalent functionality by relying on integration runtime of Azure Data Factory. In this article, you get an overview of this Azure-based SSIS offering.

Integrating SQL Server Tools into SQL Change Automation Deployments

Phil Factor shows how to integrate use of SQL Change Automation, SSMS registered servers, SMO, and BCP to automatically build or update a database on all servers in a group.

6 steps to a more secure SQL database

Security is often something people think about only after they have had a problem. Given that the average cost of a data breach is $3.92 million (SecurityIntelligence 2019) and ransomware attacks have increased 97% over the past 2 years (PhishMe 2019), the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" approach can clearly be catastrophic. Here […]

DevOps Self-Service for Databases with SQL Clone

Phil Factor describes the freedom of being able to "self-serve" databases, during testing and development, and explains how it works with SQL Clone.

How to Use Parameters in PowerShell

Every DBA should have basic PowerShell skills. In this article, Greg Moore explains how to write a PowerShell script that takes parameters.