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

The FAST number_rows Query Hint

Query hints are always about tradeoffs—typically you are giving up something, such as flexibility, to achieve more consistency, or very specific performance characteristic. One example of this migt when...

2019-10-29 (first published: )

1,021 reads

Blog Post

New Event Calendar

Speaking Engagements Check out my new Event Calendar, to see my upcoming and past speaking engagements. You can catch me at various events throughout the year. If you are...

2019-10-15

11 reads

Blog Post

Quick SSMS Tip

It is widely known that I am a horrible speller and hate to type code. I tend to use a lot of code snippets and reuse code to avoid...

2019-09-20 (first published: )

1,262 reads

Blog Post

Are My SQL Server Indexes Being Used?

Indexes can be incredibly beneficial to your database performance; however, they do come with a cost—indexes both consume storage space and affect insert performance. Therefore, it is important as...

2019-09-11 (first published: )

2,796 reads

Blogs

ISACA AI Material/Exam Prep Discount (May 18 – June 30, 2026)

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If you are considering any of the ISACA AI certs like the Advanced Artificial...

A Fabric solution can be very cost effective

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Are you currently using Microsoft Fabric or considering migrating to it? If so, there...

Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log

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Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log If you...

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Forums

We Are Eating Our Own Seed Corn

By dbakevlar

Comments posted to this topic are about the item We Are Eating Our Own...

Before Using AI with Business Data, Read This

By rom_c99

Artificial intelligence tools are quickly becoming part of daily business operations, from document analysis...

Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines That Don't Break at Scale

By SQL Expert

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines...

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Question of the Day

Detecting Deadlocks Quickly

In the Database Engine, when a deadlock is detected, what does the detection interval shrink to (in time)?

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