Advent of Code
If you want your skills to be sharp, you practice. If you want to get yourself to actually do practice, you call it a “challenge”. This is what the...
2015-12-23
10 reads
Simple SQL Server
Use Compression to Combine Data Quality and Performance
We’ve been using the wrong data types for all the wrong reasons. DBAs, developers, data architects, etc. have all been...
2015-12-21
984 reads
Indexing Strategy
What do I care about when I’m playing with indexes? That’s easy. I want as few indexes as possible efficiently referenced...
2015-12-28 (first published: 2015-12-16)
3,527 reads
Picking a Clustered Index
A Clustered Index is not another term for Primary Key, and more thought should be put into the key columns...
2015-12-16 (first published: 2015-12-14)
2,524 reads
Data Compression
Data compression is often misunderstood to cost CPU in exchange for smaller size on disk. Somewhat true, but that simple...
2015-12-08
1,129 reads
Querying the Plan Cache
I love working with indexes, and I need to know what’s using them to work on them intelligently. Most of...
2015-12-08 (first published: 2015-12-01)
2,012 reads
SQL Server Error Log Reader
Reading the SQL Server Error Log is miserable. It contains very useful information you should address as soon as possible,...
2015-11-16
685 reads
Give More Feedback
I write on my blog and get a couple comments at best. I talk at conferences and a large part of...
2015-11-06 (first published: 2015-11-02)
645 reads
Extended Events Intro
Extended Events is supposed to be taking over for most of Profiler and server-side tracing functionality, but there were people...
2015-10-26
1,501 reads
Technical Interviews – How to Thrive
There’s a trick to technical interviews. Every question is looking for integrity first, and intelligence and energy second. This is...
2014-05-23 (first published: 2014-05-13)
2,772 reads
Blogs
Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Forums
Database file shrink issue.
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers