Getting a query plan
Query plans are an essential tool when doing performance tuning. When looking at a query plan you should be aware...
2014-02-19
1,482 reads
Kenneth Fisher
T-SQL Tuesday #51: Doubledown disaster
Jason Brimhall is hosting the 51st T-SQL Tuesday this month with “Place your bets!.
It’s always a gamble when buying a...
2014-02-14 (first published: 2014-02-11)
1,577 reads
Transactions: What commands aren’t allowed?
Transactions are great tools that every DBA and developer should learn how to use. Unfortunately not everything can be put...
2014-02-13 (first published: 2014-02-05)
4,553 reads
Check your SQL Agent history settings before it’s too late!
A little while back I was doing some research into a failed job and ran into a slight problem. The...
2014-02-10
894 reads
Negative session_ids
I probably had the most fun all week when a query I was running came up blocked. Sounds strange right?...
2014-02-03 (first published: 2014-01-27)
2,170 reads
Transactions: Creating a single restore point across multiple databases.
This is a disaster and recovery trick I’ve found to be useful for developers with batch processes that hit multiple...
2014-02-02
1,361 reads
Using sys.dm_exec_sql_text() to figure out blocking is sometimes flawed.
I frequently rely on joining sys.dm_exec_requests and sys.dm_exec_sql_text() to know what queries are running on a system and when I...
2014-01-29
1,181 reads
Transactions: Who, What and Where
Recently we had a scenario where we had a handful of queries being blocked. Nothing unusual there but when I...
2014-01-23 (first published: 2014-01-20)
3,293 reads
The “most_recent_sql_handle” column
While researching my last post I ran across an interesting column I hadn’t noticed before, sys.dm_exec_connections.most_recent_sql_handle. I mentioned it in...
2014-01-22
1,079 reads
Guid vs Identity columns (Ints)
I came across an interesting question on SE last week. Guid vs INT – Which is better as a primary key?...
2014-01-20 (first published: 2014-01-13)
4,714 reads
Blogs
Learn Better: Pause to Review More
By Brian Kelley
If you want to learn better, pause more in your learning to intentionally review.
Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-Gen: Bring on the IOPS
By John
If you’ve used Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose, you know the drill: to...
SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data
By DataOnWheels
Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...
Forums
Two foreign keys to the same table. Can't cascade deletes.
Not sure if this is really a relational theory question but it seems about...
Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working
Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...
High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?
Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...
Question of the Day
Encoding URLs
I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table:
CREATE TABLE Response ( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY , ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000) ) GOIf I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use? See possible answers