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: )

1,013 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

10 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: )

1,261 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: )

2,786 reads

Blogs

Are you getting value from your reporting?

By

Do you spend so long manipulating your data into something vaguely useful that you...

The Book of Redgate: SQL Server Central

By

It was neat to stumble on this in the book, a piece by me,...

Git forked

By

Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day...

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Forums

Microsoft Security Changes and SQL Server

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Microsoft Security Changes and SQL...

Expanding into Print

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Expanding into Print

Downtime Caused by the Postgres Transaction ID Wraparound Problem

By Chandan Shukla

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Downtime Caused by the Postgres...

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Question of the Day

The String Distance I

In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:

SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('Steve', 'Stan')
Assume preview features are enabled.

See possible answers