How I tackle disaster recovery
One of my special interests as an autistic person is understanding mechanical components of a computer, both analog and digital. In the olden days, we had devices known as...
2021-05-26
26 reads
Born SQL with Randolph West
A quick primer on binary and hexadecimal
A few years ago, I wrote that a CPU is “a hot mess of on-off switches.” There’s more to it than that when you get into the weeds of...
2021-05-31 (first published: 2021-05-19)
432 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #015: Automation
In February 2011, Pat Wright invited us to talk about Automation: So the topic I have chosen for this month is Automation! It can be Automation with T-SQL or...
2021-05-12
12 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #014: Resolutions
At the end of 2010, Sean McCown (blog | Twitter) invited us to talk about resolutions: Things like getting certified, or perfecting a process, or taking management classes, etc...
2021-05-05
14 reads
Ambling through undocumented DBCC commands may result in boredom
There comes a time when we heed a certain call. The call is to avoid dangerous undocumented DBCC commands in SQL Server, especially those that bypass built-in protections. I’m...
2021-04-28
16 reads
Calgary Data User Group with Deborah Melkin and Andy Yun
Next week on Wednesday is the Calgary Data User Group’s second event for 2021, and the second event as a member of Microsoft’s new Azure Data Community. Since last...
2021-04-21
17 reads
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #013: What the business wants
Click here to read previous retrospective entries. From Steve Jones (blog | Twitter) in December 2010 comes the question “What issues have you had in interacting with the business to get your...
2021-04-15 (first published: 2021-04-14)
175 reads
Upcoming speaking engagements
The last time I presented a session was at the final PASS Summit in November 2020, so it is time to get back on the virtual conference trail again....
2021-04-07
12 reads
Zeroing out a transaction log file does not use zeroes
I’ve been doing SQLskills training recently, and Paul Randal (blog | Twitter) reminded our class that zeroing out a transaction log file does not use zeroes (0x00). Well, not...
2021-03-31
40 reads
What is a community advisory board anyway?
For those of us who have been involved in the Microsoft Data Platform community for a few years, the events of the last few months have been dramatic, culminating...
2021-03-24
22 reads
Blogs
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025
When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...
Forums
Multiple Deployment Processes
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How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to...
Upgrading Admin Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries
Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
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