How Your Hypervisor Can Impact Your CPU
Recently I had a client complain of chronic high CPU utilization. The performance of their SQL Server had degraded, and...
2019-03-06
554 reads
SQLEspresso
Editorial – Dealing with Ugly Babies
One thing I learned while working as a database administrator over 17 years is the importance of teamwork across departments....
2019-02-27
243 reads
Azure Key Vault Logging
Following up from last week’s post on Azure Key Vault in this blog I will show you how to the...
2019-02-20
227 reads
Speaking Internationally at SQLBits
I am very excited and lucky to be speaking at my very first international conference, SQLBits. SQLBits, the largest SQL...
2019-02-13
183 reads
What is Azure Key Vault?
Keys and secrets (AKA passwords) are an essential part of data protection management not only on-premises, but within the cloud...
2019-02-06
250 reads
Azure Advisor
Azure offers a lot of value-added services included with the price of what you pay . One of the things really,...
2019-01-30
279 reads
Scheduling things to Run in SQL Server
A key part of the SQL Server Agent is the ability to schedule jobs. While you can create one schedule...
2019-02-08 (first published: 2019-01-23)
2,744 reads
Approximate COUNT DISTINCT
We all have written queries that use COUNT DISTINCT to get the unique number of non-NULL values from a table....
2019-01-15 (first published: 2019-01-03)
2,464 reads
Static Data Masking (SSMS 18.0 Preview)
Ever need to have a test database on hand that you can allow others to query “real like” data without...
2019-01-02 (first published: 2018-12-19)
2,685 reads
SQL Server Vulnerability Assessment
SQL Server Vulnerability Assessment (VA) in SQL Server Management Studio 17.4 or later lets SQL Server scan your databases for...
2018-12-12
318 reads
Blogs
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...
Self-Hosting a Photo Server the Whole Family Can Use
By Bert Wagner
Until recently, my family's 90,000+ photos have been hidden away in the depths of...
Forums
Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy Stuff
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy...
UNISTR Escape
Comments posted to this topic are about the item UNISTR Escape
Celebrating Tomorrow
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Celebrating Tomorrow
Question of the Day
UNISTR Escape
In SQL Server 2025, I run this command:
SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C\3068 and good night', '*') as "A Classic";
What is returned? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
A: 
B: 
C: 
See possible answers