In Memory of Andrew Clarke, AKA Phil Factor
One of the parts of getting older that really sucks is I seem to attend more funerals than weddings. It’s a sad fact of file, and this was one...
2025-09-15
574 reads
Blog Posts
Leading Through the Noise: Harnessing Data in the Age of Digital Overload
The New Leadership Frontier In today’s digital landscape, leaders are no longer just visionaries. They are navigators of complexity, interpreters of signals, and stewards of trust. Technology has transformed...
2025-09-15
66 reads
SQL Server Log Shipping: The Tried and True of DR
It’s not glamorous, but it works In a world where shiny new HA/DR features get all the press, there’s one SQL Server technology that just keeps doing its job....
2025-09-15 (first published: 2025-08-27)
226 reads
A New Word: Anderance
anderance – n. the awareness that your partner perceives the relationship from a totally different angle than you – spending years looking at a different face across the table,...
2025-09-12
509 reads
AI and Cybersecurity: the Genie is Out of the Bottle
Today's reality is that cybercriminals are increasingly using AI to develop better attacks. This is just the latest reported technique, probably because it's starting to be used more often....
2025-09-12 (first published: 2025-08-21)
244 reads
Free Online Sessions – Building the €100 DWH and Indexing for Dummies
I’m giving two online sessions soon on virtual events that are free to attend. The first one is at Retro Data (20th of September), a new virtual conference focusing...
2025-09-12 (first published: 2025-09-11)
385 reads
The “Kill” Command: What to Consider Before Stopping a SQL Server Process
Whether you’re troubleshooting on-premises SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, Managed Instance, or Amazon RDS, you will eventually encounter a “lead blocker”—that one high-cost, long-running session holding every other process...
2025-09-12
25 reads
The Strategic Imperative of SQL Performance Tuning in Azure
Aligning Technical Excellence with Organizational Agility Tuning SQL performance in Azure transcends routine database management and becomes a strategic imperative when viewed through an executive lens. Slow database operations...
2025-09-12 (first published: 2025-08-21)
344 reads
Adding SQL Server 2025 to my Laptop
I wanted to do some testing of SQL Server 2025 on my laptop. I have written before how I avoided installing SQL Server on the laptop and use containers...
2025-09-10 (first published: 2025-08-20)
727 reads
Scooby-Doo and the Mystery of Cloud Costs (Let’s have some fun!) – Scooby Dooing Episode 1
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in consulting, it’s that SQL Server, and other database performance tuning isn’t just about faster queries—it’s directly tied to your bottom line in...
2025-09-10 (first published: 2025-08-25)
313 reads
Blogs
Database AI Agents: The Read-Only Rule
By Arun Sirpal
Fourth in a series on Ai and databases. What Read-Only Advisory Actually Means A...
Creating a SQL Stored Procedure to Load a SCD2
By DataOnWheels
This is a blog that I am writing for future me and hopefully it’ll...
Funny Money: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
While wandering around the documentation looking for some Question of the Day topics, I...
Forums
Pro SQL Server Internals
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Pro SQL Server Internals
SQL ART: Who's Blocking Who? Visualising SQL Server Blocking With Spatial Geometry
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL ART: Who's Blocking Who?...
Running SQLCMD II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Running SQLCMD II
Question of the Day
Running SQLCMD II
I run this command to start SQLCMD:
sqlcmd -S localhost -E -c "proceed"At the prompt, I type this (the 1> and 2> are prompts):
1> select @@version 2> goWhat happens? See possible answers