Thom Andrews

"Database Administrator" for a small Insurance Broker in England.

I use the quotes as, being a small business, although my role is called Database Administrator, you often need to be a jack of all trades for small companies. As a result I have exposure to Network Administration, Web Development, and some server maintenance (mainly the Ubuntu servers at the office); so although I'm not trained I've had to assist enough times to know what I'm looking for or at (which greatly helps when a problem isn't SQL Server based).

SQL Server enthusiast, however, little to no experience on with any other RDBMS. Linux and Windows user, with VB.Net experience, and enjoy to dabble in PoSH and Bash. I can read C#, it is a .Net language after all, but I'm hopeless at writing it; for some reason it's always escaped my grasp. I can't even blame it on the compulsory semi-colons as (one day) they'll be compulsory in T-SQL too (bring it on SQL Server 2037!).

Blogs

Time to Revive our YouTube Channel

By

It’s been forgotten about and neglected for few years but I’ve decided to dust...

Microsoft MVP 2025: Continuing the Data Platform Journey

By

I am honored to announce that I have been renewed as a Microsoft MVP...

What is KTLO? Keep The Lights On vs Project Work in Agile

By

🔍 Demystifying KTLO: A Deep Dive into Keep The Lights On Work in IT...

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Forums

How a Legacy Logic Choked SQL Server in a 30-Year-Old Factory

By Chandan Shukla

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How a Legacy Logic Choked...

Navigating Multi Platform Realities in My Database Life

By dbakevlar

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Navigating Multi Platform Realities in...

Import/Export SSMS Settings issue

By Brandie Tarvin

I have tried a number of times to export and then import my SSMS...

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Question of the Day

Query Plan Regressions --

For the Question of the day, I am going to go deep, but try to be more clear, as I feel like I didn't give enough info last time, leading folks to guess the wrong answer... :) For today's question:  You’re troubleshooting a performance issue on a critical stored procedure. You notice that a previously efficient query now performs a full table scan instead of an index seek. Upon investigating, you find that an NVARCHAR parameter is being compared to a VARCHAR column in the WHERE clause. What is the most likely cause of the query plan regression?

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