EightKB 2026: Registration is Open!
It’s that time of year again! EightKB is back on August 20th at 13:00 UTC, and registration is open right now. It’s completely free. No catch, just a full...
2026-08-06
128 reads
Blog Posts
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales owns sales transactions, Finance owns budgets, and Shared Data owns common tables such as Customer,...
2026-08-06
169 reads
SQL Server Security Hardening Guide Using the DoD STIG Checklist
Security on your SQL Server is important. That doesn’t need any explaining. But where do you start when evaluating the security of your SQL Server? If you are like...
2026-08-06
352 reads
Getting the SQL Server MCP Server Running
If you’ve wanted a SQL Server MCP server for your databases, it’s available. The SQL MCP Server is a part of the Data API Builder (DAB). DAB is a...
2026-08-05 (first published: 2026-07-27)
626 reads
Match the Model to the Task, Not the App: An Orchestrator-Worker Pattern in Python
Most apps that call an LLM send every request to the same model. That works until the bill arrives.
A classification job that returns one word costs...
2026-08-05 (first published: 2026-07-24)
182 reads
TRY_PARSE Limitations: #SQLNewBlogger
I got a notification from a question I’d posted at SQL Server Central: Getting the Average. A user had posted their repro didn’t work, with no real comment. As...
2026-08-05
74 reads
How I Troubleshoot a Slow SQL Server Live
No two SQL Server environments are alike. A fix that resolves a performance issue in one environment may not work in another because every SQL Server instance has different...
2026-08-04
217 reads
T-SQL Tuesday #201 Invitation: Temp Tables, Friend or Foe?
My T-SQL Tuesday #201 invitation. Do temp tables help performance or hurt it? I argue moving data into a #temp table is usually the wrong reflex, and invite you...
2026-08-04
79 reads
Getting Started with Azure SQL Developer on Macbook
The idea behind Azure SQL Developer is for anyone to build, iterate, and test locally at no cost. This means NO Azure subscription to deal with and NO credit...
2026-08-03 (first published: 2026-07-23)
228 reads
Power BI Performance in 2026: A Practical Guide to Faster Semantic Models and Reports
Originally published April 2022; substantially updated July 2026. This post is a complete replacement for and update to my April 2022 post, Power BI Performance Features. That post focused...
2026-08-03 (first published: 2026-07-23)
922 reads
Blogs
Accessing the Data API Builder MCP Server from VS Code
By Steve Jones
I recently started playing with the MCP Server for SQL Server, which is a...
From DBA or Data Engineer to AI Engineer: A Realistic Path
If you spend your days tuning queries, managing pipelines, or keeping a production database...
Asynchronous Replication of Snapshots from an ActiveCluster Pod to a Third Array
I’ve been rebuilding my three-site SQL Server demo lab, and I ran into something...
Forums
STRING_AGG DISTINCT
Has anyone written a wrapper function (or similar) around STRING_AGG() to allow the retrieval...
In-place OS upgrade or migration to new OS?
Putting this here as we're currently on SQL Server 2019 installed on Windows Server...
Never is Not the Policy
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Never is Not the Policy
Question of the Day
Rebuilding All Indexes
I have added a few indexes to one of my tables in SQL Server 2025:
ALTER TABLE dbo.CustomerContact
ADD CONSTRAINT PK_CustomerContact
PRIMARY KEY (CustomerID);
-- Create index on CustomerEmail
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerEmail
ON dbo.CustomerContact (CustomerEmail);
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerPhone
ON dbo.CustomerContact (phone);
I then do this to disable one index:
alter index IX_CustomerContact_CustomerPhone on dbo.CustomerContact disableI see this when I check the index status:
I decide to rebuild all indexes with this command:
ALTER INDEX ALL ON dbo.CustomerContact rebuildAfter I do this, what will I see for the index status? See possible answers