What’s a Key Lookup?
One of the easiest things to fix when performance tuning queries are Key Lookups or RID Lookups. The key lookup operator occurs when the query optimizer performs an index...
2019-04-17 (first published: 2019-04-03)
724 reads
Blog Posts
Testing with Temporary Stored Procedures
A while back I learned that it’s possible to create temporary stored procedures in SQL Server. I never put that knowledge into practice however because I struggled to think of...
2019-04-16 (first published: 2019-04-02)
859 reads
Validation activity in Azure Data Factory - Traffic light of your operational workflow
(2019-Apr-02) Last week Microsoft introduced a new Validation activity task to the Azure Data Factory (ADF) - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/control-flow-validation-activity Initially, I was confused by its name, thinking that it would help me...
2019-04-16 (first published: 2019-04-03)
11,114 reads
Window Functions vs GROUP BYs
Watch this week's video on YouTube
There are many options available for improving the performance of a query: indexes, statistics, configuration settings, etc...
However, not all environments allow you to use...
2019-04-16
7 reads
Window Functions vs GROUP BYs
Watch this week's video on YouTube
There are many options available for improving the performance of a query: indexes, statistics, configuration settings, etc...
However, not all environments allow you to use...
2019-04-16
8 reads
Actual Emails: How do I learn SQL Server despite limited SQL duties at work?
Got this email from a client in the southern US asking how to up their game in SQL Server, frustrated by a lack of hands-on opportunities to administer SQL...
2019-04-15
18 reads
Database Offline – Redux
A database can be offline at the time that you take over responsibility of the database. You will be asked when it was taken offline. This script will help...
2019-04-15
15 reads
Database Offline – Redux
A database can be offline at the time that you take over responsibility of the database. You will be asked when it was taken offline. This script will help...
2019-04-15
146 reads
Database Offline – Redux
A database can be offline at the time that you take over responsibility of the database. You will be asked when it was taken offline. This script will help...
2019-04-15
5 reads
Generating an SSH key on Windows
I needed an SSH key. First I needed to the WSL subsystem, and once I had that working, I could do the work I needed to do: get an...
2019-04-15
807 reads
Blogs
2025 Wrapped for Steve
By Steve Jones
I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...
The Book of Redgate: Spread across the world
By Steve Jones
This was Redgate in 2010, spread across the globe. First the EU/US Here’s Asia...
Merry Christmas
By John
Today is Christmas and while I do not expect anybody to actual be reading...
Forums
SQL Server 2019 - Agent job PowerShell step issue
I have a couple of SQL Agent job steps which run PowerShell commands of...
Database security permissions save script
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Database security permissions save script
Database backup job steps
I have a SQL Agent job for backing up a set of Analysis Services...
Question of the Day
The Large Encoded Value
I want to use the new BASE64_ENCODE() function in SQL Server 2025, but return a string that isn't large type. What is the longest varbinary string I can pass in and still get a varchar(8000) returned?
See possible answers