Fragmentation Fear
Index fragmentation can certainly cause performance problems, but should it really dictate the way we design our clustered indexes?
Report Builder 3.0: Formatting the Elements in your Report
There is a lot that can be done to make basic tabular reports more readable, using Microsoft's free Report Builder. Rob Sheldon continues his exploration of the power of this tool by showing how to format various elements within reports
A simple T-SQL statement to create a list of lookup values
In this article, we provide a simple way to get a comma delimited list from a table of entries without having to use a CURSOR or a WHILE loop to read through the table.
Data Access Tracing in SQL Server 2012
Learn how to apply the tracing functionality in Microsoft data access technologies such as ADO.NET 2.0, MDAC 2.82, SQL Server Native Client, and the JDBC driver; and in the SQL Server network protocols and the Microsoft SQL Server database engine.
An Interview with Amazon Web Services
A short interview with Sundar Raghavan of Amazon Web Services about SQL Server and their support and offerings of cloud data services.
Outsourcing Security
Companies may look to outsource security in order to take advantage of experts' skills at a lower price. What will that mean for data professionals?
SQL Database Management Survey
Win one of two $50 Amazon vouchers by entering our database management survey. We’re finding out more about how SQL database professionals are doing backup and recovery, using cloud services and more. Answer the short survey for a chance to win.
Ten Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started Using tSQLt and SQL Test
The tSQLt framework is a great way of writing unit tests in the same language as the one being tested, but there are some 'Gotchas' that can catch you out. Dave Green lists a few tips he wished he'd read beforehand.
Pair Programming
Today Steve Jones talks about pair programming and when it might make sense for data professionals.
Find out which SQL Server instance is consuming most of the CPU
We have a number of SQL Server hosts with multiple SQL Server instances. From time to time we have CPU issues, but we are not sure which instance is causing the issue. How do you find which SQL Server instance is causing CPU pressure on machine with multiple SQL Server instances? Check out this tip for ideas on how to find the correct SQL Server instance which is causing CPU pressure.
Blogs
Moving On-Prem PostgreSQL to the Cloud: Picking the Right Path for Big Tables
Every PostgreSQL migration eventually hits the same fork in the road. The database is...
A Spread of Vacation
By Steve Jones
I’m off on vacation today. Which is a little weird as I just got...
How AgentDBA Identifies Backup Failures
By Arun Sirpal
Every DBA has a box like this. Sitting untouched for months. Nobody’s proud of...
Forums
Have you done a Mid year check in?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Have you done a Mid...
From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline
Comments posted to this topic are about the item From SQL Server On-Premises to...
Independence Day 2026
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026
Question of the Day
Independence Day 2026
In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.
See possible answers