Encryption Not Restriction
Encryption keys for services in the cloud should be maintained by the customer, according to Steve Jones. It's actually a good idea for all of your data.
Free Webinar: Statistics in Oracle and SQL Server
In their third live 'Oracle vs. SQL Server' discussion, Jonathan Lewis (Oracle Ace Director, OakTable Network) and Grant Fritchey (Microsoft SQL Server MVP) will look at statistics in Oracle and SQL Server. Expect a lively debate on Oracle vs. SQL Server from two leading RDBMS experts on Jan 23, 2013.
SQLServerCentral Runs sp_Blitz - Performance Part 1
The third article that examines the output of the sp_Blitz script™ run against SQLServerCentral's database servers.
Hypothetical Indexes on SQL Server
Sometimes, you have to test out alternative indexing strategies, but the task of creating the candidate indexes would just take too long. Is there another way? Well, yes, why not use the same method the DTA (Database Tuning Advisor) uses, and take the tedium out of the job.
Antipathy for Entity Attribute Value data models
EAV models have their uses but the costs are often hidden and if not hidden, more than anticipated.
The Data Scientist
Phil Factor on why Data Science is about much more than just clever visualizations and big data.
The Optimists
A develop should be a glass-half-full kind of guy, at least according to Steve Jones. This editorial was originally published on April 15, 2008. It is being re-run as Steve is on holiday.
VARCHAR (MAX), NVARCHAR (MAX) and NTEXT Data Types
Despite NTEXT and TEXT being deprecated in SQL Server for some time they are still both used in production systems. In this article, I will briefly demonstrate the difference between a VARCHAR (MAX), NVARCHAR (MAX) and the NTEXT data types, and the impact on performance from using NTEXT/TEXT.
The Growth of Storage
This week Steve Jones asks you to predict the future of hardware. When will we have laptops that rival the specs of today's large SQL Server servers.
Blogs
A Career of Memories
By Steve Jones
Annabel retired from Redgate Software this week. Across most of my career at Redgate,...
Rethinking Index Maintenance: Why avg_fragmentation_in_percent Is Outdated and What You Should Do Instead
By Tim Radney
As a SQL Server DBA with years of experience tuning production environments, I’ve seen...
Microsoft Build 2026 announcements
By James Serra
Once again there were a number of Microsoft Build announcements related to data and...
Forums
Changes, Happiness, and a Few Tears
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changes, Happiness, and a Few...
BCP on Linux
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BCP on Linux
You Probably Don't Need a Vector Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item You Probably Don't Need a...
Question of the Day
BCP on Linux
When running bcp on Linux, what is the field terminator?
See possible answers