Red Gate brings SQL in the City back to London for the third year running
Data professionals are invited to attend Red Gate’s free SQL in the City event for a day of SQL Server training in London.
SQL Server's Auto Update Statistics Async Option
I have been trying to tune my SQL Server and I noticed a few database settings for statistics. I also read the previous tip on automatic statistics updates. Could you please describe the Auto Create Statistics Async option? How is this configured and when should I use it and when should I avoid using it?
Car Data
Today's automobiles might collect more data than you think. All that might data gives us opportunities to find new and interesting ways to use this data with software.
Stairway to SQL PowerShell Level 5: SQL Server PowerShell Building Blocks
You should be on your way with PowerShell with the previous levels and now the topic shifts to using Functions and Assemblies built in to .NET for use with automation. This topic will be used in your PowerShell adventures throughout your career and this Stairway.
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.
Blogs
A Last Minute Trip to the EU
By Steve Jones
My life has some crazy travel stretches for sure. Between speaking, office visits, customer...
Part 3 of 3: Tuning DiskANN — R, Alpha, L, Beam Width, Recall and Latency
In Part 1, we saw how ‘Vamana’ represents vectors as nodes, connects them with...
Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
Forums
Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in SQL Server 2025: Fixing the Kitchen-Sink Search Procedure
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...
AI Experience Gap that we keep talking about
Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Experience Gap that we...
Question of the Day
ORDER BY alias
There is a table tmp_tab:
CREATE TABLE tmp_tab ( id int, val int );
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES (1, 1), (2, NULL), (3, 3), (4, 4), (5, 5);You want to order the rows ids by the following expression:
ISNULL(val, id) + 1Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct) See possible answers