The Microsoft SQL Year in Review
Microsoft gives a year in review from the SQL Server and Azure SQL teams. Steve sees a lot of accomplishments from this past year.
2025-12-20
66 reads
Database Weekly
FinOps - the new name for performance tuning
This year I have been speaking with an increasing number of people about FinOps and what it means. Fundamentally, it is all about getting a handle on the cost for our technology spend. When we step back and look at the bigger picture it also has ramifications on corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) programs […]
2025-11-29
130 reads
2025-11-15
91 reads
Why Data Modelling Still Matters - More Than Ever
In today’s fast-paced landscape, where agile development and cloud-native platforms dominate, data modelling might seem like a relic of the past.
2025-10-25
232 reads
Planning for tomorrow, today - database migrations
I have been speaking to people about database migrations to the cloud a lot over the last few weeks. One thing that has jumped out at me is that we seem to focus on the process of moving data being the migration rather than one step in a larger process. Many people neglect the discovery […]
2025-09-20
105 reads
2025-09-06
133 reads
Can You Ask for a Raise?
Steve talks a bit about the choice to ask for a raise in the current climate.
2025-06-14
79 reads
Greener Grass
Before I start the whining (whinging if you prefer), let me just say I have the greatest job in the world. I'm exceedingly lucky to have it. I'm grateful as can be. And someone else (looking at you Tim) can get it when they pry it from my dead cold fingers. With that out of […]
2025-06-16 (first published: 2025-05-31)
157 reads
Feeling your age? How would you know?
As this idea is being born, I am sitting in a dueling piano bar and I have never felt so old ever. And I don’t mean physically. I have only recognized about 1/4 of the songs being played, and everyone just seems younger than me. Even the people I think are older seem younger as […]
2025-04-05
72 reads
Widespread New Technology Adoption
It can be hard to change peoples' habits and get them to adopt new technology.
2025-03-15
99 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
SQL Server 2025 Backup Compression Algorithm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Backup Compression...
The Large Encoded Value
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Large Encoded Value
The Side Job
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Side Job
Question of the Day
The Large Encoded Value
I want to use the new BASE64_ENCODE() function in SQL Server 2025, but return a string that isn't large type. What is the longest varbinary string I can pass in and still get a varchar(8000) returned?
See possible answers