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...

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...

SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices

SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices

In the Windows administration world, it's pretty much a standard practice to rename the local administrator...

Stanford Emerging Technology Review 2026 Report is out

Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing are two areas of emerging technology that receive most of the tech news. However, the Stanford Emerging Technology Review tries to include any relevant...

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 alive, you already carry most of what an AI engineering role needs. What is missing...

Methodology for dealing with bad data in production

Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad data in production. If you’ve never been in this situation, having a plan beforehand is...

Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK

Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK

Every morning somebody on the team runs the same check. Thirty tables in the staging schema, and the only thing anyone wants to...

How to Provision an Azure SQL Database

Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database is another great tool for learning SQL. You can even use it for low-traffic or...

Monday Monitor Tips: The MCP Server

I have been experimenting with MCP servers in a few ways, and pressing on our Redgate Monitor team to add one to their system. They did, started adding tools,...

The Fringe Festival

I was lucky enough to take a vacation a decade ago in Edinburgh with my wife. She came over to the UK with me for a quick trip. We...