AgentDBA vs Critical SQL Server
It’s 07:43. Someone’s already left a message. “Something’s wrong with the DB server.” You open the terminal and go to work. This post is about what happens next —...
2026-06-16
189 reads
Blog Posts
Finally Cleaning Up Dropbox: Moving Almost a TB to Google Drive with rclone
I’ve had a Dropbox account for years. Like a lot of people, I started using it when it was one of the easiest ways to sync files across machines...
2026-06-16 (first published: 2026-06-15)
152 reads
AI Experiments: Parsing Payment Memos
As part of my running the SQL Saturday charitable foundation, I get sponsorship money from vendors. Primarily Microsoft and AMD, but I hope to change that in the future....
2026-06-15
32 reads
Distance Metrics for Semantic Similarity Searches in SQL Server 2025
Next up in my series talking about The Burrito Bot is diving into the different distance metrics used to calculate how a vector generated from a query compares to...
2026-06-15 (first published: 2026-05-28)
186 reads
Killing Explicit Sort Steps in Redshift with the Right SORTKEY
You paste a slow Redshift query plan into PlanTrace and one of the tuning insights reads "SORTKEY optimization candidate", pointing at an explicit sort step that's adding cost you...
2026-06-15
37 reads
PowerShell Strikes Back: A New Script
This is it. The final chapter of PowerShell Strikes Back. Over the past four weeks, you’ve built a real foundation. You know that single quotes are literal and double...
2026-06-15 (first published: 2026-05-26)
525 reads
5 SQL Tricks Worth Remembering Before You Close the Laptop
Disclosure: this post may contain links to books as an affiliate link. If you purchase through it, this site may earn a small commission at no extra cost to...
2026-06-12 (first published: 2026-05-29)
952 reads
Giving AI Agents Visibility Into SQL Server with MCP
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it actually takes to make an AI agent genuinely useful for database work, both for administration and for application access to...
2026-06-12 (first published: 2026-05-24)
490 reads
The Book of Redgate: Taking Breaks
We work hard at Redgate, though with a good work-life balance. One interesting observation for me (as an American) is how well most of the company in the UK...
2026-06-12
62 reads
Database AI Agents: The Read-Only Rule
Fourth in a series on Ai and databases. What Read-Only Advisory Actually Means A read-only advisory system does exactly two things: it observes and it recommends. It never acts....
2026-06-11
45 reads
Blogs
PostgreSQL Support in the Data API Builder
By Steve Jones
Next week I’m at VS Live in San Diego (register and join me) and...
Ten Years of PowerShell
Ten years ago today, I filmed a Pluralsight Play by Play on open source...
T-SQL Tuesday #202: 100 Hours
By Steve Jones
It’s time for T-SQL Tuesday again and this is a great prompt to start...
Forums
Stored Procedures for Server-Level Object and Column Search
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stored Procedures for Server-Level Object...
Databricks Genie Spaces for SQL Analysts: Natural Language Querying Without Leaving Your Data Platform
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Databricks Genie Spaces for SQL...
The Costs of Multiple Platforms
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Costs of Multiple Platforms
Question of the Day
RegEx Functions II
I have this data in a table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
EmailAddressID EmailAddress 7 dylan0@ADVENTURE-WORKS.COM 8 Diane1@ADVENTURE-WORKS.COMIf I run this query, which row(s) are returned?
SELECT top 10 * FROM person.EmailAddress WHERE REGEXP_LIKE(EmailAddress, '^d') AND BusinessEntityID IN (7,8)See possible answers