From time to time, I encounter blocking situations where I end up issuing a SQL KILL command against the blocking SPID. When I run sp_who2, I can see the killed SPID is in a ROLLBACK state. Is there any way I can get an idea of how long the rollback for the SPID will take?
2025-04-09
This article series will teach you what you need to know to take advantage of GitHub Actions, especially for deploying database code.
2025-04-07
If you don’t know, DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a language for creating custom calculations and aggregations in Power Pivot, Power BI, and other data analysis tools. Two functions in DAX come close to replicating the functionality but come with limitations. Which one of these functions should you use?
2025-04-04
If you’re going to work with databases, you probably ought to know something about data. In particular, we don’t put data directly into a database; we have to encode it and represent it in a format which a machine can handle.
2025-04-02
Over the last several years, Microsoft has been putting less and less effort into Cumulative Update documentation. We used to get full-blown knowledge base articles about fixes, but these days, we get a collection of footnotes with deceiving hyperlinks that look like they’re going to lead to more information – but they simply lead back to themselves.
2025-03-31
Regular expressions (REGEX) let you adaptively investigate, employ, and authenticate text data. This makes it easy to search for simple or complex string patters. There is no direct way to do this in SQL Server, but in this article we look at some SQL functions you can create to emulate regex like functionality.
2025-03-28
The digital landscape is rapidly evolving, and the question has progressed from whether to adopt cloud technology to how to effectively use it to drive business growth and innovation. Having recognized the power of the cloud in terms of agility, scalability and innovation, organizations are turning their focus to how to get more from their investment. One such consideration is multi-cloud.
2025-03-26
I need to construct JSON from data in our database, but I find the existing FOR JSON PATH limited when the data is not located in one single row but rather scattered over multiple rows. Is there another method on how to handle JSON data in SQL Server? Learn how to use the new SQL Server JSON Functions JSON_OBJECTAGG and JSON_ARRAYAGG in this article.
2025-03-24
The other day, my lovable coworker and frequent Simple Talk writer: Grant Fritchey, sent this post on X:
2025-03-21
In our conversations with job seekers, a consistent theme has been HOW do you use AI tools. This can be used to get new ideas, improve and optimize resumes, understand trends/market data, determine new connections and networking avenues, save time, alleviate headaches and roadblocks, and be more efficient and effective overall. Well, say goodbye to the days where you need to start a cover letter or resume from scratch or feel isolated, alone, and anxious during the resume writing, interview prep, salary negotiation, and other parts of the job search process, as we all now have an incredibly powerful job searching tool and career coach at our disposal to help with any writer’s block and almost every challenge you may run into!
2025-03-19
By Vinay Thakur
I wrote about TempDB Internals and understand that Tempdb plays very important role on...
By Vinay Thakur
continuing from Day 1 where we covered the history of AI and GPT family,...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Quick Restore
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Guarding Against SQL Injection at...
I have a quick question on Ola Hallengren Index Optimize Maintenance . Do we...
While doing some testing of an application, I wanted to reset my environment after doing some testing with this code:
USE DNRTest BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' GO /* Bunch of stuff tested here */RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACEWhat happens if this runs, assuming the "bunch of stuff" isn't anything affecting the instance. See possible answers