SQL Saturday #161 - East Iowa
A free day of SQL training in Iowa City o Aug 11. Come meet other SQL Server professionals in the area.
Set Up Grouping Intervals for Excel (SQL Spackle)
So you want to group your data for charting in Excel? Here's how, the easy way!
The DBA Database
One very handy item Steve Jones found as a DBA was a DBA only database on each instance. Today he asks you if you have one and if not, why not. There are good reasons to have one, and security is usually not a problem.
Implement Continuous Integration In Your Software Project
Continuous integration, or CI, brings developers closer to delivering error-free software flawlessly. Find out how to implement it.
Better Bosses Needed
These days it seems there's no shortage of bad managers out there. However the bad ones do more than hurt morale, they actually can impact productivity. Steve Jones wonders why companies don't do more to fix this.
Don't Share Passwords Across Sites
There is a rippling effect from the hack on Yahoo. Those users and passwords are being used on other sites. Steve Jones reminds us that we shouldn't be sharing passwords, and we should educate our users to do the same thing.
Track source dates when loading a data warehouse
A primer on how to reduce network and source system load when reading a relational source into the data warehouse.
An Introduction to SQL Server Service Broker
Service Broker is a technology built into SQL Server and utilized by the engine for its internal asynchronous processing. The great thing about Service Broker is that its functionality is exposed so we can build our own custom data integrations. Deanna Dicken introduces you to the concepts needed to create a service broker integration.
Performance Data
Great DBAs collect all kinds of metrics on their instances and let them manage themselves. However many administrators need help monitoring and interpreting the data. Today Steve Jones asks if you think this data needs extra security or is it less of an issue than other PII data.
Summarizing Imported Data
This article shows a few simple techniques to summarize table data using T-SQL.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
See possible answers