Query Plan Oddities: Two Identical Missing Indexes
Brent demos a single query plan that asks for 2 identical indexes on the same table.
2017-12-26
3,142 reads
Additional Articles
Cascading Update and Delete for SQL Server 2017 Temporal Tables
Ameena Lalani looks at cascading updates and deletes when using temporal tables in SQL Server.
2017-12-25
3,228 reads
New Azure SQL Database Standard Tier Sizes
Tim Radney of SQLskills talks about the various Standard tiers available in Azure SQL Database – what they get you, and how much they cost.
2017-12-22
3,997 reads
Different Ways to Find SQL Server Orphaned Users
SQL Server orphaned users are a common thorny issue in auditing. In this post, Jeffrey Yao provides a few different ways of identifying orphaned users covering various scenarios.
2017-12-21
3,707 reads
Still More SQL Server Features that Time Forgot
As the final entry in this series, Robert Sheldon leads you through a group of forgotten features that have been removed from recent versions of SQL Server. In some cases, the features were widely used and often loved, while others had lost their usefulness over the years or were replaced with something much better. In this article, he remembers Data Transformation Services (DTS), a handful of DBCC commands, a few utilities, Active Directory Helper Service, English Query, Web Assistant, SQL Mail, Native XML Web Services, Notification Services, SQL Distributed Management Objects, Surface Area Configuration Tool, and the Pubs and Northwind databases.
2017-12-20
3,745 reads
Understanding Migration from SQL Server to SQL Server 2017 using Data Migration Assistant
You can use the Data Migration Assistant (DMA) tool to migrate your SQL Server instance to an on-premise SQL Server 2017 or to Azure SQL Database. DMA analyzes data migration issues and provides recommendations to resolve them. Read on learn about the features of DMA and how DMA eases your SQL Server instance migration as well as reduces overall risks, allowing you to complete the migration successfully.
2017-12-19
3,471 reads
Summarizing Data Using the GROUPING SETS Operator
Writing aggregate queries is one of the most important tasks for anyone working with T-SQL. Determining the expressions required in the GROUP BY clause is not that difficult, but what do you do if you need to include different combinations of group by expressions in the same result set? Alfonso demonstrates how to use the GROUPING SETS operator to accomplish this task.
2017-12-18
4,860 reads
How to use Azure SQL Database features and settings
Vitor Montalvao explains how to work with the basic configuration settings for a SQL Azure database from the Microsoft Azure portal itself.
2017-12-15
4,054 reads
Questions About the GDPR That You Were Too Shy to Ask
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will affect organisations in countries around the world, not just those in Europe. The GDPR regulates how personal data is stored, moved, handled, and destroyed. Not following the regulation will lead to dire consequences for your organisation. As a data professional or developer, you may have many questions and might be wondering how it will affect the way you will do your job. William Brewer answers common questions about the GDPR that you were too shy to ask.
2017-12-14
3,329 reads
Partition Level Locking: Explanations From Outer Space
Erik Darling partitions the Stack Overflow database, then uses sp_WhoIsActive's @get_locks = 1 parameter to demo locking.
2017-12-13
3,150 reads
Blogs
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025
When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...
Forums
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Upgrading Admin Queries
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Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
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