SQL Best Practices
SQL Server has evolved a great deal since I first started working with SQL Server 6.5 in 1998. Unfortunately I continually come across newer systems that are configured with...
2024-12-10
67 reads
Tim Radney
It is Work to Live not Live to Work
In the United States, we have our Thanksgiving this month. This is a time where families come together for a huge meal. For many, it is a time to...
2024-11-11
13 reads
Msg 3140 – Could Not Adjust the Space Allocation for File
I often need to shrink database files. I know, ‘shrinking is bad’, however there are situations where it is very much needed. In my line of work, I come...
2024-10-07
248 reads
Why You Need a SQL DBA or Consultant
Many organizations do not have in-house DBAs. This can be due to a number of reasons. Most commonly it is smaller organizations that cannot justify a full time DBA....
2024-09-16
10 reads
Your SQL Server is Slow, What To Look At
As a data professional, you’ll often get a phone call, email, or trouble ticket that says “SQL Server is slow, my query is slow, or things are slow”. This...
2024-08-12
13 reads
Risk with Not Patching and Upgrading SQL Server
Working with SQL Server over the past 25 years for various organizations all over the world, I usually always find a database server that is well outside of support....
2024-07-15
39 reads
Purging SQL Server Backup History
It seems like every few weeks I come across a database server with a very large msdb. After a small amount of investigation work, I determine that the largest...
2024-06-10
20 reads
Getting Error 64 When Trying To Connect to SQL Server or Azure
Often times when working with a client, I’ll run into issues or get emails from a client with a message like the following: A connection was successfully established with...
2024-05-14
17 reads
Why Test SQL Server Backups
For a lot of us data professional types, this seems like a silly topic, however I constantly hear of companies that aren’t testing their backups by restoring them, or...
2024-04-23
12 reads
#ThankfulThursday
Wednesday March 13th 2024 I had the honor of speaking at the Redgate Summit in Atlanta and got to meet a lot of new people and get to hang...
2024-03-20 (first published: 2024-03-15)
132 reads
Blogs
Who Are You Doing It For?
By Brian Kelley
But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers