Baselines
It can be hard to analyze performance without a baseline. This week, Steve Jones asks how you might use your baseline to better determine what problems you are having with your SQL Server.
Join Operations – Nested Loops
This is part I of III in a series on the physical join operators in SQL Server.
Silent Truncation of SQL Server Data Inserts
There are certain circumstances where SQL Server will silently truncate data, without providing an error or warning, before it is inserted into a table. In this tip we cover some examples of when this occurs.
A New Type of Colocation Facility
Microsoft is working on their generation 4 data centers, which might be a great idea for companies if they can implement a private cloud.
Custom Metric - Indexes with Excessive Writes
A new custom metric is available at SQL Monitor Metrics. This tracks indexes that have more writes than reads. Use this code if you want to find out if you might be over indexing your tables.
SQL Server 2012 Integration Services - Introduction to Managing SQL Server with PowerShell
Marcin Policht presents the fundamental principles of PowerShell in the context of SQL Server 2012. Join him as he steps through its initial setup and configuration, and reviews specific management areas where its advantages can be realized.
Stairway to XML: Level 9 - Creating XML-Based Functions
In this Level, we’ll look at how to use XML methods within user-defined functions to return XML fragments and values from your target XML instance.
The Knowledge Graph
Google has a new project to use a "database of everything" to help you learn more.
Blogs
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...
T-SQL Snapshot Backups on Availability Group Secondary Replicas
One of my favourite features of SQL Server 2022 was the T-SQL Snapshot Backups....
The Book of Redgate: Hours
By Steve Jones
I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of...
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