When Page Prefetching Takes a Back Seat – Exploring Trace Flag 652 in SQL Server
Learn how a trace flag affects SQL Server reading from disk and where this might be a useful thing for you to enable.
2025-09-24
2,496 reads
Chandan Shukla
Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale – Level 2: Page Server Architecture Explained
In Level 2 of the Stairway to Hyperscale, we learn about Page Servers in more detail.
2025-09-17
856 reads
Revisiting SQL Server Window Functions- A Practical Walkthrough
A look at window functions in SQL and how they can be used to query data without the restrictions of a GROUP BY.
2025-09-12
7,013 reads
Introduction of Azure SQL Hyperscale: Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale Level 1
In Level 1 of the Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale, we learn about the architecture and create a hyperscale instance.
2025-09-03
4,228 reads
Advanced SQL Server Page Forensics: Detecting Page Splits and Allocations with DBCC PAGE
Page splits are an often-overlooked performance killer in SQL Server. In this article, we take a forensic look at how serial inserts differ from mid-table inserts, revealing why inserting rows out of order causes hidden page splits, increased IO, and fragmentation. Using a wide-column table, we demonstrate both scenarios and decode their impact with page-level analysis.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-05)
2,597 reads
Deprecated but Forgotten: Why SQL Server’s Text, NText, and Image Data Types Still Haunt Your Systems
TEXT, NTEXT, and IMAGE columns have been deprecated for nearly two decades, yet they still silently haunt many SQL Server environments. This article explains their hidden limitations with practical demos and shows why migrating to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) is critical for modern performance, maintainability, and future upgrades.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-06)
2,907 reads
How to safely and surgically restore filegroups
Most DBAs are familiar with full and differential ...
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-01)
1,002 reads
What is Delayed Durability in SQL Server — And Should You Turn It On?
Learn about delayed durability in SQL Server and how it might help you with a heavily loaded server.
2025-08-29
8,776 reads
From Rows to Pages: The Hidden Chaos Behind SQL Server’s Sampling Methods
Learn about the TABLESAMPLE option in T-SQL and uncover some of the pitfalls of assuming this works as you think it does.
2025-08-22
2,196 reads
How a Legacy Logic Choked SQL Server in a 30-Year-Old Factory
When a SQL Server Express-based factory app started crawling, the culprit wasn’t hardware or network — it was a decades-old WHILE loop migrated from C/C++ to SQL. This real-world story breaks down how procedural habits, memory grants, and lack of window functions nearly derailed a production floor.
2025-07-28
14,476 reads
Blogs
PlanTrace Now Supports PostgreSQL
PlanTrace Now Supports PostgreSQL The same plan analysis you know from...
A New Word: the Kinder Surprise
By Steve Jones
the kinder surprise – . the point in your early adolescence when you realize...
Crash-Consistent Snapshot Cloning - Hyper-V Edition
If you’ve been following my T-SQL Snapshot Backup series, most of what I’ve covered...
Forums
The New Wave of Security Threats
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There's Too Much to Learn
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How to Calculate Distance Between Coordinates in SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Calculate Distance Between...
Question of the Day
SSoL Support on the OS
On which Linux versions is SQL Server 2025 on Linux supported?
See possible answers