Tony Davis

  • Interests: football, modern literature, real ale

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Stairway to Transaction Log Management

Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 9: Monitoring the Transaction Log

Our major goal in terms of log maintenance for all databases under our care is to optimize for write performance, in order to support all activities that require SQL Server to write to the log, including data modifications, data loads, index rebuilds, and so on. However, it's also important to keep an eye on possible log fragmentation, which, as described previously, can affect the performance of processes that need to read the log, such as log backups and the crash recovery process.

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2025-09-10 (first published: )

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Stairway to Transaction Log Management

Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 3: Transaction Logs, Backup and Recovery

This article discusses the different types of backup and recovery models and gives the essential facts that will guide you to being able to achieve a recovery of a database to a point in time.

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2025-05-28 (first published: )

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Stairway to Transaction Log Management

Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 1: Transaction Log Overview

The transaction log is used by SQL Server to maintain data consistency and integrity. If the database is not in Simple-recovery mode, it can also be used in an appropriate backup regime to restore the database to a point in time.

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2025-04-30 (first published: )

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SQLServerCentral Article

SQL Server Crib Sheet Compendium

As a developer, DBA or manager, you may not really want to know all about XML, replication or Reporting Services, but if your next project uses one or more of these technologies heavily then the best place to start is with the 'jungle roof' view of each topic that this Crib Sheet compendium provides.

2022-04-27 (first published: )

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Question of the Day

ORDER BY alias

There is a table tmp_tab: 

CREATE TABLE tmp_tab (
id int,
val int
);
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES
(1, 1),
(2, NULL),
(3, 3),
(4, 4),
(5, 5);
You want to order the rows ids by the following expression: 
    ISNULL(val, id) + 1
Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct)

See possible answers