Stupid Interviewer Tricks
Today's editorial was originally published on Feb 7, 2008. It is being re-published as Steve is on vacation.
What do you do when the interviewer is obviously wrong? Steve Jones offers a perspective.
Optimizing tempdb configuration with SQL Server 2012 Extended Events
One of the most obvious bottlenecks in the performance of tempdb is caused by PAGELATCH, in-memory latch contention on the allocation bitmap of each data file used. We can use one of the rules-of-thumb to choose what should be roughly the best number of files, but how then do you check to see whether you've got it right for your data and workload?
Code Reviews Must Be Brutally Honest
Today we have a guest editorial from Hakim Ali. Today Akim talks about why holding back out of politeness in code reviews may be a self-defeating practice.
Pushing SQL Alerts to Remote Server using PowerShell 2 and T-SQL
Managing log files in a large enterprise environment can be an overwhelming task. In this article I will show you how to automate some of the work using SQL Alerts and Powershell 2.0
Windows Server 2012, ReFS and No SQL Server
ReFS, the new file system with Windows Server 2012, should be good news, but its apparent lack of support for SQL Server is a serious concerned for Phil Factor.
How to Audit Login Changes on a SQL Server
I've been charged with coming up with a quick solution to audit login changes on my SQL Servers. However, there's no budget so I'm going to have to come up with basic scripts and the like to do the work. Is this tip we cover a solution for you to audit login changes.
Targeted Index Performance Improvements
This article identifies which indexes are used when T-SQL code runs, and proposes ways of improving these targeted indexes, leading to better performing code.
RegexClean Transformation
Use the power of regular expressions to cleanse your data right there inside the Data Flow. This transformation includes a full user interface for simple configuration, as well as advanced features such as error output configuration. Two regular expressions are used, a match expression and a replace expression. The transformation is designed around the named capture groups or match groups, and even supports multiple expressions.
No Limits
There are some very interesting projects being performed with cloud services. Steve Jones talks about a few and the new computing without limits claim from Google.
Issues Determining an Individual SQL Server User's Permissions
Recently I was supporting a third party application. It queries to determine what tables it has permissions to before it proceeds with the rest of its functionality. We had implemented permissions based on the best practice of creating roles, assigning the permissions to the roles, and then making the users members of the roles. The application was querying INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_PRIVILEGES and of course didn't find any permissions directly against the user in question. We ended up granting explicit permissions to the user so the application would work, but I'm more interested in the general case. How can I determine permissions for an individual user?
Blogs
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...
Tip: Expanding a SQL statement
In all recent versions of the database you can call DBMS_UTILITY.EXPAND_SQL_TEXT to get the...
Forums
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
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