Kevin3NF

Kevin Hill is a career SQL Server DBA living in Dallas, TX. His specialities include HA/DR, Best Practice configuration, Performance tuning and teaching new and accidental DBAs
  • Interests: Cycling, family, sci-fi, DBA stuff

Blog Post

SQL Server Time Bombs

Common Reasons for Emergency SQL calls If you are a production DBA (or Accidental prod DBA) you’ve gotten that frantic call in the middle of the night. Or maybe...

2025-03-12 (first published: )

540 reads

Blog Post

Top 10 Careers in Data

Would you re-order these? Machine Learning Engineer $$$$$ Develop and deploy AI models Optimize machine learning algorithms for efficiency Work with big data frameworks to process large datasets Data...

2025-02-28 (first published: )

326 reads

Blog Post

3rd Party Applications Have Issues

As a SQL DBA, what do you do when a vendor application has performance problems that are code related? Server settings don’t generally seem to be an issue. Queries...

2024-05-20 (first published: )

188 reads

Blog Post

Degrees and Trade Schools

Can we normalize a couple of things? 1 – Trade Schools. Back in the 80’s trade classes in high school and post high school were frowned upon, or looked...

2024-05-08

18 reads

Blog Post

Set-Based vs Row-Based Database Code

In SQL Server, the terms “set-based” and “row-based” refer to different approaches or styles of writing SQL code to manipulate data. These styles have implications for performance, readability, and...

2023-12-18 (first published: )

595 reads

Blog Post

Database Concerns – A Poll!

What are you most concerned about in your database platforms? Please pick from the list below, and expand on your choice in the comments if you like:   Thanks...

2023-11-08 (first published: )

212 reads

Blog Post

IRL #8: SQL Server Down

Problem: My PocketDBA® client called in with a non-responsive SQL Server. Application errors, timeout, alerts firing. SQL Server box is up, and the services are running. Background: This is...

2023-09-06

31 reads

Blog Post

SQL Server is not a Car

Lets compare them anyway, just for fun. Both have an engine Both have a monitoring device (Dashboard/Activity Monitor) Both need power (Gas/Electricity) Both need to be told what do...

2023-09-05

29 reads

Blogs

SQL Saturday Boston Slides and Code

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Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions today at SQL Saturday Boston 2025. I’ve...

Scaling SQL Server 2025 Vector Search with Load-Balanced Ollama Embeddings

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SQL Server 2025 introduces native support for vector data types and external AI models....

Advice I Like: Fear and Imagination

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Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not...

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Forums

how to use a variable in a CASE statement?

By water490

hi everyone I am getting an error when I add a variable to a...

How to Use SQL Server Features to Cut Web App Latency in Half

By Muhammad Adnan

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use SQL Server...

Choosing an AI in Sept 2025

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Choosing an AI in Sept...

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Question of the Day

The New SQL Server 2025 Data type

In SQL Server 2025, there is a new data type designed to support similarity search and machine learning applications for AI applications. What is this new data type?

See possible answers