Monica Rathbun

Monica lives in Virginia and is a Microsoft MVP for Data Platform. She has over 15 years of experience working with a wide variety of database platforms with a focus on SQL Server. She is a frequent speaker at IT industry conferences on topics including performance tuning and configuration management. She is the Leader of the Hampton Roads SQL Server User Group and a Mid-Atlantic PASS Regional Mentor. She is passionate about SQL Server and the SQL Server community, doing anything she can to give back. Monica can always be found on Twitter (@sqlespresso) handing out helpful tips.

Blog Post

Comparing Execution Plans

When you run a query twice, and get dramatically different run times, your first step can be to try to identify the differences in execution plans. For many that...

2019-07-05 (first published: )

928 reads

Blog Post

Filtered Index Basics

In this post, we continue with another beginner’s blog of database features that may be unknown to many. Let’s take a look at filtered indexes. Many database administrators are...

2019-06-10 (first published: )

766 reads

Blog Post

DMV’s for the Beginner

I give performance presentations at many different events to all levels of SQL Server professionals. Over time I’ve noticed that some DBAs and developers have never looked at the...

2019-05-29 (first published: )

2,093 reads

Blog Post

What is Implicit Conversion?

Another quick post of simple changes you can make to your code to create more optimal execution plans. This one is on implicit conversions. An implicit conversion is when...

2019-04-29 (first published: )

1,143 reads

Blog Post

What’s a Key Lookup?

One of the easiest things to fix when performance tuning queries are Key Lookups or RID Lookups. The key lookup operator occurs when the query optimizer performs an index...

2019-04-17 (first published: )

723 reads

Blog Post

Women in Tech Talk Tech

March is Women’s History Month, to celebrate the PASS Women in Technology Virtual Group (@PASS_WIT) held a webcast featuring prominent...

2019-04-09 (first published: )

1,035 reads

Blogs

The Benefits of Teaching

By

Even preparing for a class or seminar with set materials takes a lot of...

Power BI, Excel, OneLake – Dreams Do Come True!

By

I can’t believe it’s finally here! A way to have Excel live in OneDrive...

The Book of Redgate: What Our Staff Says

By

This image is from 2010, and it goes along with my last post of...

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Forums

Deny Connect problem

By Brandie Tarvin

I have a login I need to deny connect to on a server, but...

Website Stability 2025/12/05

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

All week we've had issues with the site being up and down. There's been...

403 Forbidden

By Phil Parkin

I created a post (or tried) in the 2022 Admin forum. https://www.sqlservercentral.com/?post_type=topic&p=4694880 But it's...

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Question of the Day

Fabric Mirroring

In which versions can I mirror a database from an on-premises SQL Server to a Fabric data warehouse?

See possible answers