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: )

1,031 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

17 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: )

1,265 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: )

2,803 reads

Blogs

The GO Barrier: Why SSMS Multi-Server Query Waits for the Slowest Connection

By

I deployed a schema change to 30 servers using multi-server query and deploy-at-low-priority. Small...

10 Things I Hate About Fabric Deployment Pipelines— And Some Alternatives

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Fabric deployment pipelines look like they solve CI/CD for Fabric content, especially for people...

The Book of Redgate: Evidence

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We aren’t the only company that does this, but Redgate Software does try to...

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Forums

A Challenge of Our Knowledge

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Challenge of Our Knowledge

The memory toll of VARCHAR(MAX) in SQL Server

By sabyda

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The memory toll of VARCHAR(MAX)...

Transaction Log Truncation

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Transaction Log Truncation

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Question of the Day

Transaction Log Truncation

In SQL Server 2025, where can I find information about items that prevent or delay the transaction log truncation?

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