Making Sense of Microsoft’s AI Strategy: Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Foundry IQ
A few weeks ago, I found myself staring at a slide full of new Microsoft AI names and thinking… wait a second. Work IQ. Fabric IQ. Foundry IQ. Agent...
2026-02-12
36 reads
Blog Posts
DBCC CHECKDB: Why It Matters and What It Means for Your Azure SQL Environments
Hey everyone, Tim Radney here. Over the years I’ve seen far too many organizations learn the hard way what happens when you ignore database integrity checks. In traditional SQL...
2026-02-11
17 reads
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
After tempdb, msdb is often the most abused system database, growing unchecked until it tanks...
2026-02-11 (first published: 2026-01-30)
593 reads
SQL Server 2025 CU1 Fixes the Docker Desktop AVX Issue on macOS
Microsoft fixed the AVX instruction issue in SQL Server 2025 CU1. The container now runs successfully on Docker Desktop for macOS without needing OrbStack.
2026-02-11 (first published: 2026-02-02)
141 reads
Webinar: Navigating the Database Landscape in 2026
For a number of years, we’ve produced the State of the Database Landscape report, based on surveys and research we do every year. I have found it very interesting...
2026-02-10
82 reads
Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022
Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022
If you’ve spent any time tuning SQL Server, you’ve probably heard “Turn...
2026-02-09 (first published: 2026-01-27)
361 reads
Three Ways to Use Snowflake Data in Microsoft Fabric
Organizations increasingly want Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric to coexist without duplicating data or fragmenting governance. With Fabric OneLake and open table formats like Iceberg and Delta, there are now...
2026-02-09 (first published: 2026-01-29)
346 reads
A New Word: Dolorblindness
dolorblindness – n. the frustration that you’ll never be able to understand another person’s pain, only ever searching their face for some faint evocation of it, then rifling through...
2026-02-06
38 reads
Advice I Like: Ranch Rules
Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it. – from Excellent Advice for Living This is a ranch rule. Leave something as you found it. If...
2026-02-06 (first published: 2026-01-30)
283 reads
PASS Data Community Summit 2025 Recap
This is long overdue but life and distractions happened. It’s been a little over two months since I returned home from PASS Summit 2025.
2026-02-06 (first published: 2026-01-26)
156 reads
Blogs
Keeping Redshift System Table History Past 7 Days with S3 Tables
Redshift keeps its SYS_* monitoring views for seven days in cluster, which is fine...
Updating the Data API Builder
By Steve Jones
I was updating my session for the Data API Builder (DAB) recently, mostly to...
T-SQL Tuesday #202 Invitation: That One SQL Server Outage You’ll Never Forget
I am excited to host T-SQL Tuesday for the first time. I want to...
Forums
Practical Ways to Approach SQL Server Problems and Case Studies
Working with SQL Server can involve more than just writing queries. Understanding database design,...
Measuring Productivity
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Measuring Productivity
Importing Excel files into SQL Server using DuckDB and Python
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Importing Excel files into SQL...
Question of the Day
Tracking All the Queries
I have 3 instances of a brand new long running query that are executing on a SQL Server 2025 instance. Query store is enabled. One of the queries is killed by the administrator, one is cancelled by the user. The other runs to completion. How many rows are in Query Store for this query?
See possible answers