Database Checkups
It's important that you are watching your databases' health to be sure that you can make changes, as well as rollback patches when issues occur.
2014-09-29
213 reads
Editorial
I am no Asimov
Rodney Landrum on finding the inspiration you need, somehow and from somewhere, to get yourself out of a tight corner.
2014-09-29
122 reads
Is SQL Server Mature?
This Friday Steve Jones is wondering if the SQL Server platform does the job well enough for most people, or are there holes that need to be filled with new features.
2018-08-03 (first published: 2014-09-26)
236 reads
The Value of Data
Data can be valuable, and there's a new book that compares the value of data today to that of oil in the previous century. Steve Jones has a few thoughts on why we should consider this to be the case.
2018-05-16 (first published: 2014-09-25)
153 reads
Testing in Production
The Apple fall keynote recently didn't work as planned, and it seems as though their systems weren't tested well enough.
2014-09-23
207 reads
Automate Yourself to a Coffee Break
A DBA should be working to automate their tasks, and find time to do things that are really important. Like keeping their coffee cup topped off 🙂
2014-09-22
287 reads
Watson Freemium
IBM has released a free version of its Watson service to help people perform analytics on their data.
2014-09-22
109 reads
No Compelling Reason
Steve Jones wants to know if you have compelling reasons to upgrade or not upgrade this week.
2014-09-19
116 reads
The 10 (.5) Commandments for IT Professionals
A list of the commandments, or at least suggestions, that Simon Holzman sees as important for IT professionals.
2014-09-18
505 reads
Swallowing the Camel
There is a paradox in the nature of the abstractions that many developers want when dealing with databases. They will strain at the gnat, but swallow a camel (Matthew 23:24). Whereas they will recoil with horror when a DBA suggests that an abstraction layer based on views, functions and procedures in a separate database schema […]
2014-09-15
184 reads
Blogs
SQL Saturday Boston Slides and Code
By Steve Jones
Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions today at SQL Saturday Boston 2025. I’ve...
Scaling SQL Server 2025 Vector Search with Load-Balanced Ollama Embeddings
SQL Server 2025 introduces native support for vector data types and external AI models....
Advice I Like: Fear and Imagination
By Steve Jones
Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not...
Forums
How to use data pre-computed in previous ETL SSIS Nodes?
I'm building ETL packages in SSIS. My data comes from an OLE DB Source...
Building AI Governance and Policies- First Steps
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building AI Governance and Policies-...
Simple delete causes table scan on other tables with foreign key
Why is sql doing a full scan VS seeking on the index? I've included...
Question of the Day
Checking Identities
The DBCC CHECKIDENT command is used when working with identity values. I have a table with 10 rows in it that looks like this:
TravelLogID CityID StartDate EndDate 1 1 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 2 2 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 3 3 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 4 4 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 5 5 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 6 6 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 7 7 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 8 8 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 9 9 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 10 10 2025-01-11 2025-01-16The docs for DBCC CHECKIDENT say this if I run with only the table parameter: "If the current identity value for a table is less than the maximum identity value stored in the identity column, it is reset using the maximum value in the identity column. " I run this code:
DELETE dbo.TravelLog WHERE TravelLogID >= 9
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog, RESEED)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
CityID,
StartDate,
EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-09-14', '2025-09-17')
GO
What is the identity value for the new row inserted by the insert statement above? See possible answers