Parameter Sniffing in Production: How a 200ms Query Became a 90-Second Outage
Learn how parameter sniffing appeared in a real system and how the issues were solved.
2026-06-29
3,546 reads
Uncategorized
Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level 5 of the Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments
As database development scales across multiple contributors, concurrency becomes an inherent aspect of the process. Changes that are individually correct may still conflict when developed against a shifting baseline. This level introduces a disciplined approach to managing parallel changesets by controlling their scope, identifying overlap, and resolving conflicts through realignment. By ensuring that only one changeset retains its original baseline while others are adapted accordingly, deployments remain predictable and consistent. Once released, changesets are treated as immutable, and further evolution proceeds through new, forward-only changes.
2026-06-24
1,010 reads
How to Deploy SQL Server on Kubernetes running on Windows
Learn how to deploy SQL Server on Kubernetes using Docker Desktop on Windows. Unlock powerful capabilities for your database.
2026-06-22
Index Fragmentation Explained: Page Splits, Logical Reads, and What to Do
Index fragmentation can silently degrade your query performance over time. Learn what happens at the page level, how to measure it, and how to fix it.
2026-06-22
2,542 reads
Midjourney, Healthcare?
Certain announcements in AI tell you more about where an industry is heading than any earnings call or research paper ever could, and Midjourney just made one. The company that spent the last few years as the most recognizable name in image generation, the one whose pictures flooded everyone's feeds and defined what people saw […]
2026-06-20
1,137 reads
Your Database Just Hit One Terabyte: Now What?
You were minding your own business, and all of a sudden it happened.
2026-06-17
Microsoft are retiring role-based certifications. Here’s why they shouldn’t
In this Simple Talk opinion piece, Microsoft certification veteran Dr Greg Low considers – and shares his thoughts on – the recent announcement that many role-based Microsoft certifications are being retired.
2026-06-08
Fuzzy String Matching in SQL Server 2025
Learn about the new fuzzy matching functions in SQL Server 2025.
2026-06-01
2,893 reads
Even When You Know What You're Doing, You Can Screw Up
There I was, walking around Amsterdam, radio in hand (OMG! He's talking about radios again!), automatically transmitting Active Packet Report System (APRS) signals every 90 seconds. Same radio I had used in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and in Poland last week. I was on the correct frequency and, as I say, I had […]
2026-05-23
135 reads
Database Mail in SQL Server 2022
This article covers the basics of getting Database Mail setup in SQL Server.
2026-05-22
3,814 reads
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SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
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Question of the Day
Getting the Average
I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.
salesperson commission Brian 12 Brian 16 Andy 7 Andy 14 Andy 21 Steve 20 Steve NULLAll the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
, AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
FROM commission
GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve? See possible answers