Over the past couple of years, I've been using the bejeezus out of AI. I don't really feel like an expert by any means - it's so hard to keep up with the advancements - but I've been enjoying reading Grant Fritchey's series on building stuff with AI, and I thought you might enjoy some of my lessons learned as well.
2026-08-19
This guide walks through the most common SQL Server index tuning mistakes seen in production environments, such as over-indexing, oversized INCLUDE lists, unnecessary fill factor settings, misuse of SORT_IN_TEMPDB, over-aggressive index maintenance – and the myth that heaps are a shortcut to speed. Features real examples.
2026-08-17
Build scalable data pipelines by pushing transformations into SQL and keeping Python focused on analysis.
2026-08-14
SQL Server Availability Groups are great for DR and HA purposes. In this article, we look at how to setup a SQL Server 2025 Availability Group using the features in SQL Server Management Studio.
2026-08-12
The article covers four connected areas: over-privileged database users, msdb and SQL Server Agent exposure, privileged maintenance jobs, and trigger-based permission hijacking.
2026-08-10
In this tip, we’ll look at some best practices to help you get the most out of your models. We will also look the DAX formula language.
2026-08-07
AI developer tools have matured fast. In 2026, most engineering workflows touch at least one AI coding agent, code reviewer, or research assistant — but the right combination depends heavily on your team size, codebase, and tolerance for setup overhead. This guide breaks down the tools actually worth using across three categories: research and architecture, day-to-day development, and code review, based on real, hands-on experience.
2026-08-05
You've heard that page splits are bad, and they're an indication that your table design is making your storage work too hard. You've heard that the right answer to fix it is adjusting fill factor lower, or doing regular index maintenance.
2026-08-03
Although ‘Big Data’ (and more specifically, the analysis of it) offers several benefits, organizations often fail to derive the correct insights – the data that could help them make better business decisions. So, in this article, I’ll reveal exactly how organizations can take full advantage of these large datasets to make those better business decisions and improve operational effectiveness.
2026-07-31
Please demonstrate the steps for updating an existing time series dataset used in a prior data mining project with a fresh batch of data. Then, repeat the mining performed for the original dataset with the freshly updated dataset.
2026-07-29
By Steve Jones
I recently started playing with the MCP Server for SQL Server, which is a...
If you spend your days tuning queries, managing pipelines, or keeping a production database...
I’ve been rebuilding my three-site SQL Server demo lab, and I ran into something...
Has anyone written a wrapper function (or similar) around STRING_AGG() to allow the retrieval...
Putting this here as we're currently on SQL Server 2019 installed on Windows Server...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Never is Not the Policy
I have added a few indexes to one of my tables in SQL Server 2025:
ALTER TABLE dbo.CustomerContact
ADD CONSTRAINT PK_CustomerContact
PRIMARY KEY (CustomerID);
-- Create index on CustomerEmail
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerEmail
ON dbo.CustomerContact (CustomerEmail);
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerPhone
ON dbo.CustomerContact (phone);
I then do this to disable one index:
alter index IX_CustomerContact_CustomerPhone on dbo.CustomerContact disableI see this when I check the index status:
I decide to rebuild all indexes with this command:
ALTER INDEX ALL ON dbo.CustomerContact rebuildAfter I do this, what will I see for the index status? See possible answers