SQL Server – What To Do When Disaster Strikes (5-Point Survival Guide)Chill, coffee first.When your SQL Server goes down, alarms are blaring, and managers are hovering, that sentence might...
2025-12-19 (first published: 2025-12-03)
583 reads
SQL Server Database Migration Pitfalls (and How to Fix Them)
Database migrations are where great product ideas go to die—unless you plan for SQL Server’s quirks and the realities of...
2025-11-21 (first published: 2025-11-05)
399 reads
Disable the sa login in SQL Server (and sleep better)If you run SQL Server in 2025 and your sa login is still usable, you’re giving attackers a giant, blinking...
2025-11-10 (first published: 2025-10-21)
1,061 reads
Why you should connect resiliently to SQL Server
Transient failures happen — in the cloud (Azure SQL) and on-prem. A resilient connection strategy lets your app recover gracefully instead of...
2025-11-05 (first published: 2025-10-13)
397 reads
Truncate Table Pitfalls
Truncating a table can be gloriously fast—and spectacularly dangerous when used carelessly. If you want the speed without the face-palm moments, here’s a practical, interview-ready guide to...
2025-10-29 (first published: 2025-10-08)
793 reads
Unused Indexes in SQL Server: Find them, vet them, and drop them safely
Indexes are fantastic when you’re reading data—and a tax when you’re writing it. Every INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE has to...
2025-10-28
297 reads
DBAs should never run SSMS under their everyday Windows account
If you open SSMS under the same Windows identity you use for email, browsing, and chat, you bring all that...
2025-10-22 (first published: 2025-10-07)
1,584 reads
Why Developers Shouldn’t Have sysadmin access in SQL Server
7 reasons—and exactly what to do instead
It can feel “faster” to hand developers sysadmin. In reality, it’s like giving them the master...
2025-10-06
474 reads
SELECT * feels convenient, but in SQL Server it bloats I/O, burns network bandwidth, blocks covering-index usage, and makes code brittle when schemas change. Specify only the columns you...
2025-10-02
37 reads
SSPI handshake failed with error code 0x8009030c, state 14 while establishing a connection with integrated security; the connection has been...
2019-03-18 (first published: 2019-03-05)
15,335 reads
By DataOnWheels
The T-SQL Tuesday topic this month comes James Serra. What career risks have you...
This T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by the one and only James Serra – literally...
By Steve Jones
This month we have a new host, James Serra. I’ve been trying to find...
Hi, ssms is free here. I can think of other reasons to do this...
I've written some documentation on using different Markdown types of files on GitHub. It's...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Not Just an Upgrade
I am doing development work on a database and want to keep a backup so I can reset my database. I make some changes and want to restore over top of my changes. When I run this code, what happens?
USE Master BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' GO USE DNRTest GO CREATE TABLE MyTest(myid INT) GO USE master RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACESee possible answers