StraightforwardSQL

Blog Post

KDA: Echoes of Deception - Case 4

Someone hacked Digitown's municipality and stole classified documents. 45 million rows of router traffic, an IP lookup table, and KQL's anomaly detection to find who did it.

2026-06-18 (first published: )

15 reads

Blog Post

My Toolbox - AI

I trusted AI to redesign this entire blog. The layout, the CSS, the deployment pipeline, the shortcodes. I use it to build home automation, organize my notes, fix my...

2026-06-11 (first published: )

23 reads

Blog Post

Inspecting TSQL Abstract Syntax Trees

TSQL ScriptDOM is a useful library for parsing scripts into an abstract syntax tree. I've built a web tool that helps visualize this tree as a learning exercise.
Foreword
I've leveraged...

2025-12-03 (first published: )

113 reads

Blog Post

KDA: Echoes of Deception - Case 3

The crime spree in Digitown is not ending. This time 20 cars have been stolen and we need to find where they’re stored.
The problem
This is the abridged case description....

2025-06-09 (first published: )

281 reads

Blog Post

KDA: Echoes of Deception - Case 2

The people of Digitown are being targeted by phishermen, and they need my help to stop them in their tracks.
The problem

The police have asked for our assistance, and we’ve...

2025-06-02 (first published: )

206 reads

Blog Post

KDA: Echoes of Deception - Case 1

Another KDA case: Digitown’s utility bills suddenly doubled for no good reason. With the election coming up, I got pulled in to figure out what went wrong. I’ve got...

2025-05-30 (first published: )

204 reads

Blog Post

Kusto Detective Agency - Intro

While I mostly write about SQL Server, I have a soft spot for Kusto. In this series, I will explore solutions to fun challenges collectively known as the Kusto...

2025-04-27 (first published: )

113 reads

Blog Post

Deploy at Low Priority

Learn how to deploy schema changes in an always-online SQL Server environment without a maintenance window. This utility reduces blocking and improves deployment success.
The problem
I attempted to deploy a...

2025-03-19 (first published: )

208 reads

Blogs

A Career of Memories

By

Annabel retired from Redgate Software this week. Across most of my career at Redgate,...

Rethinking Index Maintenance: Why avg_fragmentation_in_percent Is Outdated and What You Should Do Instead

By

As a SQL Server DBA with years of experience tuning production environments, I’ve seen...

Microsoft Build 2026 announcements

By

Once again there were a number of Microsoft Build announcements related to data and...

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Forums

Changes, Happiness, and a Few Tears

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changes, Happiness, and a Few...

BCP on Linux

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item BCP on Linux

You Probably Don't Need a Vector Database

By Kumar Abhishek

Comments posted to this topic are about the item You Probably Don't Need a...

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Question of the Day

BCP on Linux

When running bcp on Linux, what is the field terminator?

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