The Second Career
From a well-built cockney who knew how to avoid wheel clamps, to an ex-member of an elite anti-riot unit, some of the best DBAs have a surprising diversity of skills and experiences, according to Phil Factor.
2017-02-13
103 reads
Phil Factor
- Interests: Motorbikes, Beer, gardening, conservation, Local history.
2017-01-23
117 reads
Keeping up to, and down with, Date
It is foolish to insist on reading only up-to-date books on technology. Nothing beats getting the broad perspective.
2017-01-09
82 reads
The Toolchain for the Job?
Phil Factor ponders the use of toolchains in automation, and wonders if there might not be a better way.
2016-12-19
114 reads
2016-12-05
97 reads
2016-11-21
170 reads
I can ODBC clearly now
ODBC is the closest thing we have to a universal standard for data access across platforms, applications and data sources. So why doesn't DocumentDB support it?
2016-11-07
116 reads
Teaching a dog to sing
To survive the inevitable downturns in the IT industry, Phil Factor argues that a IT manager needs to take time to maintain technical skills. It is not enough to understand development; you have to be able to do it.
2016-09-12
104 reads
Towards a Single Management Stack
Phil Factor argues that with both SQL Server and PowerShell now running on Linux, the latter becomes increasingly important in achieving the goal of a single management stack for databases across all hosting environments.
2016-09-05
69 reads
SQL Server docks in Linux
The Database Engine on the Data Platform departs for Linux. A late arrival but worthwhile, says Phil Factor.
2016-08-29
64 reads
Blogs
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Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
Forums
Huge frustration - Database watcher with two elastic pools
Think there's a reason why this is still in preview, but have someone manage...
SQL Server 2025 Query Performance Tuning: Troubleshoot and Optimize Query Performance
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Query Performance...
Is it uncommon for Dev's to have a data model of the source data
This is a generic question. To the moderators, I wasn't sure where to place...
Question of the Day
Creating JSON I
On SQL Server 2025, what happens when I run this code:
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG( 'City':'Denver') GOSee possible answers