When do Distribution Statistics Get Updated?
Statistics objects are important to us for allowing SQL to make good estimates of the row-counts involved in different parts...
2017-07-05
769 reads
Matthew McGiffen DBA
Row-count Estimates when there are no Statistics
I was discussing Cardinality Estimation with a colleague recently and the question came up, what cardinality does SQL Server use...
2019-04-26 (first published: 2017-06-28)
2,876 reads
Statistics and Cardinality Estimation
Cardinality
This is a term originally from Mathematics, generally defined as “The number of objects in a given set or grouping”....
2019-04-26 (first published: 2017-06-20)
5,800 reads
What’s an “Index” and how do they work?
What is an Index?
We often hear indexes explained using the analogy of an index in the back of a book....
2017-06-12
1,580 reads
SQL Puzzle 1: Magic Squares
This is the first in what I hope will be a semi-regular series of recreational puzzles where SQL can be...
2017-06-07
1,564 reads
Working with Data in Always Encrypted
In this post we’re going to create some encrypted columns in a table in a test database and look at...
2017-06-06
10,530 reads
Statistics Parser
In the last post we looked at using the STATISTICS IO and STATISTICS TIME commands to measure query performance.
If you’ve...
2019-04-26 (first published: 2017-05-31)
2,314 reads
Understanding Keys and Certificates with Always Encrypted
Always Encrypted on SQL 2016 is pretty easy to set up. There’s even a single wizard to guide you through...
2019-04-26 (first published: 2017-05-30)
8,444 reads
Tuning Parallelism on SQL Server
Parallelism and MAXDOP
There’s no doubt that parallelism in SQL is a great thing. It enables large queries to share the...
2017-05-26
5,294 reads
Measuring SQL Query Performance
When running workshops on the subject of SQL Query Performance the first question I always ask is how do we measure...
2019-04-26 (first published: 2017-05-24)
36,098 reads
Blogs
Claude Code Helps Analyze Test Data Manager Log Files
By Steve Jones
I had a customer ask about analyzing their Test Data Manager (TDM) usage to...
PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
Forums
Why the following cmds in sequence do not work
I need to delete rows from both the temporal main and history tables. The...
When SQL Server Central Went Down
Comments posted to this topic are about the item When SQL Server Central Went...
The String Distance I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The String Distance I
Question of the Day
The String Distance I
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
Assume preview features are enabled. See possible answers