Why Tech Events Matter for Data Pros (and why I’m grateful)

I just got back from the Redgate Summit events in New York City, where I had the chance to present, swap stories, and nerd out with a lot of brilliant data folks. I came home energized… and then promptly slept for 14 hours on Thursday. That’s the best kind of exhaustion in my book.  The […]

Using Ollama on Windows 11 as an Alternative to Public LLMs

In my ongoing war against shadow AI, I’ve been testing out alternatives that most everyone can use, no matter what your technical expertise.  Although somewhat limited depending on your resources available, (laptop CPU/GPU, memory, etc.) If you want to try the newest open models without sending your prompts to the cloud, or you just want […]

Everyone Wants a Piece of the AI Pie

Swiping through LinkedIn feels like watching a campsite suddenly flooded with s’mores. Every other ad, i.e. post, promises the next miracle AI service, platform, or “AI-powered” widget. It’s a frenzy that says: “If buzzwords paid the bills, we’d all be billionaires already.”  I can’t fault the reasoning, there’s a lot of buzz out there telling […]

Critical Data and Insomnia

Most evenings I spend some time soaking in the tub and reading articles/watching videos on InfoSec, Data Protection and AI.  It may sound like a terrible way to spend some time, but I always find it educational and I’m in shock by the lack of concern around data security, and yet….I’m not.  For decades, the […]

Page Compression, Unique Identifiers and Speed

The Double-Edged Sword of AI and Data Democratization

Agentic AI is often hailed as a game-changer by organizations, bringing autonomous decision-making, intelligent automation, and powerful predictive capabilities. However, as organizations rush to leverage these technologies, those dealing with critical data in relational databases, documents and datasets, especially personally identifiable information (PII) face a harsh reality: moving AI projects from proof-of-concept to production is […]

Always On Availability Groups and Capabilities

The Problem with AI Job Loss Headlines?

Every few weeks, headlines scream about how artificial intelligence is coming for our jobs. The narrative is often the same: white-collar professions are at risk, automation is taking over, and we’re all doomed to obsolescence.

When DBAs Should Consider Using SQL Server to Store Vector Data and If It Makes Sense

As we continue to build more applications using AI embedded solutions, database professionals are increasingly being asked to support workloads that would have seemed outside their charter just a few years ago. One of the most significant shifts has been the rise of vector data (i.e. high-dimensional numerical representations of content like text, images, and […]

Capacity Planning for an Existing SQL Server Workload?