What Counts for a DBA: Laziness
Louis Davidson is willing to bet that a relatively small handful of lazy people have done more for the world than all of the hard working people combined.
Data Science Laboratory System - Instrumentation
It is sensible to check the performance of different solutions to data analysis in 'lab' conditions. Measurement by instrumentation makes it easier to develop systems that are efficient.
Toggle Switches
SQL Server has grown and expanded to provide administrators and developers with a great deal of information on how it processes queries. However Steve Jones asks if you want more information and options for tuning.
Use of Identity Property to Resolve Concurrency Issues
This article describes how the identity property was used to resolve contention in a database
Creating Custom T-SQL Conditions and Policies for SQL Server Policy-Based Management
In SQL Server, the built in conditions and policies are a great place to get started with monitoring your environment, but there are no facets for some aspects of SQL Server I want to monitor. How can I check on my environment using Policy Based Management? Check out this tip to learn more.
SQLServerCentral Runs sp_Blitz - Performance Part 2
The second part of our performance examination on the SQLServerCentral database servers using the sp_Blitz script from Brent Ozar, PLF.
Zettabytes and Beyond
The growth of data, and the sheer scale of data we store and manage is stunning. Steve Jones looks at the rates of growth these days.
Query Tuning, Encryption, and more at SQL Intersection
Grant Fritchey is speaking about query tuning, Steve Jones talking about Encryption, Paul Randal telling you how to make SQL Server faster. All at SQL Intersection. Join us in April.
Using Optimizer_WhatIF and StatsStream to Simulate a Production Environment
SQL Server's Query optimiser judges the best query plan from the data in the relevant tables and the server's hardware. How, then, can you investigate the query plans being generated for slow-running queries on a customer's production server when you can neither access the server, nor recreate the database from a backup?
Populating a Vertically Filtered Replicated Table
Vertical filtering of a large replicated table introduces the potential for unwanted transactions to be pushed to the subscriber. This article talks about how you might avoid this.
Blogs
Why Database AI Agents need Layers?
By Arun Sirpal
Third part in my Ai series with databases. When building AI solutions within the...
Un-Migrating From the Cloud: T-SQL Tuesday #199
By Steve Jones
This month we have a very interesting invitation from Koen Verbeeck. He has hosted...
T-SQL Tuesday #199: Back to the on-prem
It’s the second tuesday of the month, which means T-SQL Tuesday time! This month’s...
Forums
How Do the Experts Become Experts?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Do the Experts Become...
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 4 – Preparing for Production Deployment
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments...
Secure Communications
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Secure Communications
Question of the Day
Secure Communications
As of June 2026, what is the best version of TLS to use with SQL Server?
See possible answers