Nil to Speaker: Improving your PowerPoint skills

As I work on my speaking skills one of my tasks is improve my PowerPoint presentations. To that end I’ve...

Using an ORDER BY in a view

For many years it’s been a best practice to never put an ORDER BY in a view. The idea is...

Emojis in SQL Server

I blame Aaron Bertrand (b/t) and Kevin Kline (b/t). Aaron who posted a great #BackToBasics blog about naming stored procedures...

Azure: Creating a BACPAC from an On-Premises SQL Server Database

So to start, what’s a BACPAC?

Per the Azure documentation
When you need to create an archive of an Azure SQL database,...

SA Spoof

This is nothing new but it’s still a fun idea.

The problem:
The vendor app we just purchased (and are told we...

Accidental DBAs, the Developer Edition

I recently spoke at the OKC SQL Saturday. I had an wonderful time and the organizers, volunteers and other speakers...

Copying an on-premise Database to an Azure SQL Database

Continuing my exploration of Azure the next logical step seemed to be copying an on-premise database up to the cloud....

The new Data Migration Assistant has been released!

Monday Bob Ward (b/t) announced on twitter that the new Data Migration Assistant had been released.

First things first the DMA...

Natural vs Artificial Primary Keys

There has been a long standing debate over the use of a natural primary key vs an artificial one. I...

RBAR vs Batch

Many years ago Jeff Moden (of SQL Server Central fame) came up with the concept of RBAR. Row-By-Agonizing-Row. At it’s...