Test Your Restores
Part of an effective response to a disaster situation is practice and testing of your skills and procedures. Steve Jones reminds us this is important today.
SQL Server Backup Questions We Were Too Shy to Ask
During presentations about doing database backups and restores, there seem to be two two types of questions that are commonly asked, Those that come from the floor during the presentation, and those that are asked in private afterwards. These are sometimes more interesting, and challenging to answer well.
Data Distribution with SQL Server Replication
This paper provides a foundation for understanding data replication as well as a discussion of the criteria for selecting an appropriate replication technology.
Grace Under Pressure
When a disaster strikes, how will you respond? Will you not only successfully recover, but will you do so with professionalism and grace under pressure? Steve Jones tells you how you can.
What Counts for a DBA: Being Replaceable
Louis Davidson describes why all DBAs should strive to be replaceable, and what that really means.
What’s in YOUR Recovery Plan?
Author Craig Outcalt gives advice on preparing for the worst with a look at what you should consider putting in your disaster recovery plan and why.
Disaster Recovery Planning for Data: The Cribsheet
Planning for disaster recovery and business continuity aren't amongst the most exciting IT activities. They are, however, essential and relevant to any Database Administrator who is responsible for the safety and integrity of the companies' data, since data is a key part of business continuity.
Fixing Gatekeeper Row Cardinality Estimate Issues
The Query Optimiser needs a good estimate of the number of rows likely to be returned by each physical operator in order to select the best query plan from the most likely alternatives. Sometimes these estimates can go so wildly wrong as to result in a very slow query. Joe Sack shows how it can happen with SQL Queries on a data warehouse with a star schema.
Keynotes
This Friday we look forward to the various tech events of 2008 and which speakers you think are worth seeing. This editorial was originally published on Jan 11, 2008. It is being re-run as Steve is traveling.
Database Deployment: The Bits - Copying Data Out
Occasionally, when deploying a database, you need to copy data out to file from all the tables in a database. Phil Factor shows how to do it, and illustrates its use by copying an entire database from one server to another.
Blogs
Flyway Tips: AI Helps with Commit Messages
By Steve Jones
At Redgate, we’re experimenting with how AI can help developers and DBAs become better...
Startup scripts in SQL Server containers
I was messing around performing investigative work on a pod running SQL Server 2025...
Using SQL Compare with Redgate Data Modeler
By Steve Jones
Redgate recently released SQL Compare v16, which included a new feature to work with...
Forums
Encoding Strings
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Encoding Strings
Deep Learning and Craftsmanship Matter
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Deep Learning and Craftsmanship Matter
Building a Real-Time Analytics Pipeline with Azure Stream Analytics and SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building a Real-Time Analytics Pipeline...
Question of the Day
Encoding Strings
I have this code in SQL Server 2025. What is the result?
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(@message); SELECT @encoded AS EncodedResult;See possible answers