A New Chapter: Why I Made the Move from Dayforce to ESO
A New Chapter: Why I Made the Move from Dayforce to ESO Over the past several weeks, many of you have probably noticed subtle hints throughout my blog. A...
2026-07-14
38 reads
Where Is My SQL Agent? Running Scheduled Jobs Against Azure SQL Database
One of the first things I review when I inherit a new SQL Server environment is the SQL Agent jobs. I can learn a tremendous amount about an organization...
2026-07-01 (first published: 2026-06-16)
542 reads
Mystery Backups: Estimating Disk Space When All You Have Are .BAK Files
How Do You Determine How Much Disk Space You Need If You’re Handed 18 SQL Server Backups and No History? Happy last day of June, dear reader. Today’s post...
2026-06-30
11 reads
PowerShell Strikes Back: A New Script
This is it. The final chapter of PowerShell Strikes Back. Over the past four weeks, you’ve built a real foundation. You know that single quotes are literal and double...
2026-06-15 (first published: 2026-05-26)
523 reads
PowerShell Strikes Back: Return of the Loop
Welcome back to PowerShell Strikes Back. We’re three weeks in, and the training is paying off. In Week 1, we learned that quotes are not interchangeable. In Week 2,...
2026-06-03 (first published: 2026-05-18)
514 reads
PowerShell Newbie – Variables
This is Week 2 of PowerShell Strikes Back – a four-week May series for SQL Server DBAs who have dabbled in PowerShell but never stopped to nail down the...
2026-05-27 (first published: 2026-05-11)
659 reads
PowerShell Strikes Back: Know Your Quotes, Young Padawan
This is Week 1 of PowerShell Strikes Back – a four-week May series for SQL Server DBAs who have dabbled in PowerShell but never stopped to nail down the...
2026-05-20 (first published: 2026-05-04)
495 reads
The Notification Trap: How Input Fatigue Is Killing Deep Work in Tech
If you’ve been here before, you know this blog is usually about SQL Server, PowerShell, and the day-to-day work of being a DBA. Execution plans, availability groups, dbatools scripts...
2026-05-13 (first published: 2026-04-28)
466 reads
How to Connect to SQL Server When Nothing Else Works – DAC
It's 2 AM. Your phone is going off. Users can't connect to the application, and when you open SSMS to investigate, the connection spinner just keeps spinning. SQL Server...
2026-05-04 (first published: 2026-04-22)
457 reads
Beyond VARBINARY: How to Store PDFs in SQL Server Using FILESTREAM and FileTable
Hello, dear blog reader. Today’s post is coming to you straight from the home office, ready to talk about a topic that comes up more than you’d think: storing...
2026-04-22 (first published: 2026-04-14)
619 reads
Blogs
Measuring RAG Solutions: Are We Retrieving the Right Information?
A RAG pipeline that answers questions in the demo is not the same thing...
Advice I Like: Lots of Ideas
By Steve Jones
“A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea” – from Excellent...
Building a DBA Agent for Your SQL Server Estate with MCP
Yesterday I gave a talk for MSSQLTips called “Building a DBA Agent for Your...
Forums
How do I connect to a SQL Server database on my ISP?
I've got a web application for my side business. I've added a SQL Server...
Looking for New Blood
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Looking for New Blood
Server-Level Row Counts for Tables and Views
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Server-Level Row Counts for Tables...
Question of the Day
Hyperscale Replicas I
What types of secondary replicas are available for the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale edition?
See possible answers