Phil Grayson

I’m Phil Grayson, founder of Aireforge, where we build tools to make database management more efficient, secure, and performance-driven. I’ve been working in the SQL Server space for over 25 years, with a focus on performance tuning, security, and observability. Currently, I’m gearing up to launch dbOptics, a platform designed to simplify database observability and performance tuning across complex estates, as well as Guard, a database firewall set to release next year.

I’m passionate about helping data professionals and organizations get the most out of their database environments. Aireforge has been active in the SQL community since 2016, sponsoring events like Data Relay and SQLBits, and we continue to contribute through knowledge sharing and community-driven events.
  • Interests: SQL Server performance tuning, index management, database security, automation of database tasks, observability and monitoring, knowledge sharing, cloud services, Azure infrastructure, motorcycle touring.

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Blogs

AI: Blog a Day – Day 7: Vector and Vector Databases

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Continuing from Day 6 we learned Embeddings, Semantic Search and Checks, on Day 7...

AI: Blog a Day – Day 6: Embeddings – How AI Understands

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Continuing from Day 5 where we covered notebooks, HuggingFace and fine tuning AI now...

The Book of Redgate: Mistakes

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This is kind of a funny page to look at. The next page has...

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Forums

Why End-User Testing Is Even More Important with AI

By dbakevlar

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why End-User Testing Is Even...

Dynamic Unpivot

By pietlinden

I have a table I didn't design that has tons of repeating groups in...

Writing as an Art and a Job

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Writing as an Art and...

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Question of the Day

String Similarity II

What is the range for the result from the EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY() function in SQL Server 2025?

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