My August Christmas Card
Do you ever get the Christmas card that features a beautiful picture of a family on the front, and a letter catching you up on their year on the...
2020-08-28 (first published: 2020-08-18)
220 reads
The Non-Cluttered Index
The Length Limitations of LEN()?
I was using LEN() to troubleshoot an issue I was having with a dynamically constructed string truncating while inserting into an NVARCHAR(MAX) column. Since I know that NVARCHAR(MAX) has...
2020-07-22 (first published: 2020-07-14)
1,405 reads
New Article For Simple Talk!
Hi All, While I haven’t been writing here, I have been writing. I have a new article that has just been published on Simple Talk, and I am developing...
2020-04-16
43 reads
Level Up!
Great news! I was accepted this weekend to speak at SQLSaturday Los Angeles! This officially counts as a level up for me for my deadlock resolution quest. The event...
2020-02-25
7 reads
My Deadlock Resolution Progress Report
As I wrote last month, I went through a period of feeling personally and professionally deadlocked, and flailed about for some time before I found the answer of making...
2021-04-28 (first published: 2020-02-21)
373 reads
How Do You Decide When Can Doesn't Mean Should?
An old proverb states, “Fire is a good servant but a bad master.” Put simply, it means that when controlled, fire is a life-sustaining element. We need it for...
2020-02-07
4 reads
Discover and Clean Up Schema Ownership
My colleagues and I take schema ownership seriously. The owner (with few exceptions) should always be “dbo”. Certainly, it should not be a user. Why? Because if the user...
2020-02-03
44 reads
When the DBA is Deadlocked
When I launched The Noncluttered Index last year, it was with the intention of writing at least twice a week. For a while, that was very doable. Then, work...
2021-04-23 (first published: 2020-01-14)
595 reads
Dropping Database Users and Logins: How it Can Go So Very Wrong, and How You Can Easily Fix It
I don't normally drop users and logins in production, but when I do, and it goes wrong, I do this.
2019-09-20
18 reads
Validating Replication (All or Just One Article)
You may sometimes have reports or other processes that are dependent on transactional replication being current. If that is the case, you will probably need a mechanism to check...
2019-08-09
10 reads
Blogs
Copying an Azure SQL database between two Azure SQL Instances in two different subscriptions.
I recently had to copy an Azure SQL database (SQL db) from one subscription...
A field note: AI Ambition vs. Operational Reality in 2025
Ivan Jelić, Group CEO at Joyful Craftsmen, reflects on what separates AI success from...
Redefining Tech Leadership in the Age of Microsoft AI
By Chris Yates
AI is no longer a niche capability – it is a leadership catalyst. As...
Forums
How a Legacy Logic Choked SQL Server in a 30-Year-Old Factory
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How a Legacy Logic Choked...
The top water testing laboratory in India is FARE Labs Pvt. Ltd.
The Fare facility, a NABL-approved water testing laboratory in India, provides accurate water testing...
SQL Server Columnstore Index Fragmentation
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Columnstore Index Fragmentation
Question of the Day
SQL Server Columnstore Index Fragmentation
The columnstore index is absolutely different than the traditional rowstore b-tree index. Because of this, it doesn't suffer from the same kind of fragmentation across pages as the b-tree index. Yet, it does suffer from a type of fragmentation brought about by an excess of deleted rows in a rowgroup and a lack of compression of storage because more things are in the delta store. While b-tree indexes use dm_db_index_physical_stats to show fragmentation, which system tables or DMVs can be used in SQL Server (prior to SQL Server 2025) to determine columnstore fragmentation?
See possible answers