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 4: Transformers – Encoder, Decoder, and Attention

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Continuing from Day 3 where we covered LLM models open/closed and their parameters, Today...

Flyway Tips: Multiple Projects

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One of the nice things about Flyway Desktop is that it helps you manage...

What DevOps Look Like in Microsoft Fabric

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Microsoft Fabric (not to be confused with the more general term “fabric” in DevOps)...

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Forums

Can an Azure App Service Managed Identity be used for SQL Login?

By jasona.work

I'm fairly certain I know the answer to this from digging into it yesterday,...

Azure Synapse database refresh

By Sreevathsa Mandli

Hi Team, I am trying to refresh the Azure Synapse Dedicated pool from production...

how to write this query?

By water490

hi everyone I am not sure how to write the query that will produce...

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Question of the Day

Fun with JSON I

I have some data in a table: 

CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    birth_date DATE
);

-- Step 2: Insert rows  
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');
If I run this query, how many rows are returned? 
SELECT *
FROM OPENJSON(
     (
         SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
     )
             ) t;

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