Think LSNs Are Unique? Think Again - Preventing Data Loss in CDC ETL
When using only an LSN to track which changes you have processed, you can lose data. This article shows how to avoid this problem.
2025-12-15
2,563 reads
Articles
Query Exercise Answer: Generating Big TempDB Spills
In last week’s Query Exercise, I challenged you to play some code golf to generate big spills with tiny T-SQL.
2025-12-15
Working with JSON/JSONB Data in PostgreSQL using Python
This article discusses how to work with JSON data in PostgreSQL using Python.
2025-12-12
593 reads
How to Monitor and Optimize Batched Deletion Processes in SQL Server
Batched deletions are a common strategy in SQL Server to manage large datasets without overloading the system, but poorly tuned deletes can cause blocking, long-running transactions, and heavy log usage. Learn how to monitor and optimize these processes for smooth, efficient database performance.
2025-12-12
Metadata Driven Pipelines (Incremental Load): The Fabric Modern Data Platform
This article will use the incremental data load pattern to load data in our raw zone tables.
2025-12-10
756 reads
Running SQL Server in Local Containers with VSCode MSSQL Extension
You are a developer using SQL Server for your applications, and you need to quickly setup a local development environment. How can you make sure the environment is OS agnostic, so it can run on any operating system? Let’s see how we can quickly create a local container to run SQL Server using the VSCode MSSQL Extension.
2025-12-10
Configuring the On-Premises Data Gateway: The Fabric Modern Data Platform
In this next article on the Fabric Modern Data Platform, we examine setting up an on-premises gateway.
2025-12-09 (first published: 2025-11-26)
2,303 reads
Unlocking Data Transformation: My journey with dbt (Data Build Tool) on SQL Server
Learn about dbt, a tool used by lots of data engineers to move data between systems.
2025-12-08
756 reads
5 Strategies to Refactor SQL Code
Code refactoring is a common process when developing in procedural languages – and essential to developing high-quality code – yet somehow often gets overlooked in SQL.
2025-12-08
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The UNISTR Function
I am not much for working in languages other than English. That's my native language and I know little about others. However, the last few years I find myself using emojis more and more in quick communications as they seem to add some fun to the interaction. And those interactions need to be stored in […]
2025-12-05
316 reads
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
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