Trace Flag 2389 and the new Cardinality Estimator

Erin Stellato shows the combined effect of different versions of the cardinality estimator and trace flag 2389 on an ascending key model.

A Tutorial With the Azure CLI (Command-Line Interface) and Azure SQL Database

In this article, we will show how to install Azure CLI and then create an Azure SQL Server and a SQL Database.

Software Animism

Have you ever accused an application of deliberately trying to make your life a misery? Simple Talk's Tony Davis talks animism in this week's editorial, and wants to hear your stories in the comments for the chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card.

Call for Articles

SQLServerCentral is looking for articles on a few topics. Read more to find out how to submit a draft.

Windows Containers and Docker

Windows Server 2016 features support for containers. These are not Linux-based, but containers that run on Windows and run Windows on the inside. These conform to the Open Container Initiative (OCI). They allow you to run applications insulated from the rest of the system, within portable containers that include everything an application needs to be fully functional. As they did with Linux, containers will change the nature of the software supply chain for Windows users.

Beyond prediction with R & SQL Server

Predictive / prescriptive analytics is regarded the highest level of advanced analytics. In this post, we emphasise the importance of exploratory analytics to derive meaningful insight.

Why Not Just Create Statistics?

Erik Darling looks at why you should be more interested in up to date statistics, and also why statistics outside of indexes aren’t really the most helpful thing.

Byte Me: Let's Cook

Simple T-SQL Code Comparison With PowerShell

Tim Smith shows how you can use PowerShell to automate a simple comparison of objects such as stored procedures, views, and fucntions.

SQL Server 2016: built-in JSON Use case scenarios

There's built-in JSON support starting with SQL Server 2016. Does that mean we should all ditch XML and start using JSON? It depends mostly on the target of your data output processing.