This level takes a deeper look at how log fragmentation can affect the performance of operations that need to read the log, such as log backups, or the crash recovery process.
2025-08-27 (first published: 2013-04-17)
7,986 reads
This level will examine the most common problems and forms of mismanagement that lead to excessive growth of the transaction log.
2025-08-13 (first published: 2012-11-26)
13,692 reads
A DBA may consider switching a database to the BULK_LOGGED recovery model in the short term during, for example, bulk load operations. When a database is operating in the BULK_LOGGED model these, and a few other operations such as index rebuilds, can be minimally logged and will therefore use much less space in the log
2025-07-30 (first published: 2012-11-07)
6,065 reads
Gail Shaw is often left bewildered by the weird and wonderful data types people choose for their tables, when storing something as simple as a telephone number or a date.
2024-07-12 (first published: 2015-02-02)
707 reads
At first glance, the question of how many rows are estimated from a table variable is easy. But, is it really that simple? Well, not really. To dig into...
2020-12-23 (first published: 2020-12-15)
424 reads
At first glance, the question of how many rows are estimated from a table variable is easy. But, is it really that simple? Well, not really. To dig into...
2020-12-15
24 reads
It’s a few days into April, but not too late I hope to mention that Pluralsight is offering their entire library, free to new accounts, for the month of...
2020-04-16 (first published: 2020-04-07)
523 reads
It’s a few days into April, but not too late I hope to mention that Pluralsight is offering their entire library, free to new accounts, for the month of...
2020-04-07
9 reads
Gail Shaw issues a rallying call for the SQL Community to adopt the Scientific Method when investigating and reporting on SQL Server behavior.
2019-09-09 (first published: 2015-05-25)
623 reads
Indexes are critical to good performance. However many people don't understand how indexes well. MVP Gail Shaw provides us with an introductory article on the basics of indexing.
2019-05-30 (first published: 2009-10-26)
104,666 reads
By Steve Jones
While wandering around the documentation looking for some Question of the Day topics, I...
By Arun Sirpal
Third part in my Ai series with databases. When building AI solutions within the...
By Steve Jones
This month we have a very interesting invitation from Koen Verbeeck. He has hosted...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Do the Experts Become...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Secure Communications
As of June 2026, what is the best version of TLS to use with SQL Server?
See possible answers