The On-call Demands
This Friday Steve Jones asks about your on-call responsibilities and the load you face from after hours calls. If you're a DBA that doesn't work strictly 9-5 every week, let us know.
Bin Packing Problems: The SQL
The 'bin packing' problem isn't just a fascination for computer scientists, but comes up in a whole range of real-world applications. It isn't that easy to come up with a practical, set oriented solution in SQL that gives a near-optimal result.
CLR Integration in SQL
Learn how to build a CLR function that can be used to perform string manipulations that might be rather complex in T-SQL.
Treat the Database like Code
Steve Jones reminds us that our databases contain code, and as such, they ought to be under some type of version control.
A Few Cool Things You Can Identify Using the Default Trace
If you are running an instance of SQL Server 2005 and above then most likely that instance is running the default trace. This default trace is a canned Profiler server side trace that automatically starts up when SQL Server starts. In this article Greg Larsen explains more about the default trace and shows you how to glean some event information from the trace files created by this background trace process.
Basics of XML and SQL Server, Part 5: Generate/Transmit XML with SSIS
This SSIS package generates XML invoice documents from data stored in SQL Server, then FTPs and/or Emails them to clients.
My Little Friend
Today Steve Jones talks about his favorite feature in SSMS 2012 and why everyone should use it.
Red Gate Software’s SQL Monitor 3.0 gives users the power of custom metrics
Red Gate Software has released Version 3.0 of SQL Monitor, a performance monitoring and alerting tool.
SQL Saturday #111 - Atlanta
A free day of SQL Server training in Atlanta, GA on Apr 14, 2012. Sign up today if you will be in the area.
Using Friendly Names for SQL Servers via DNS
Wouldn't it be great if your HR folks only had to put in HR-SQL.mydomain.com for the database connection in their reports? They wouldn't have to remember it was on server Nile and they certainly wouldn't have to change their reports if you migrated their database from the Nile server to the server named Danube. In DNS there are two easy ways to do this.
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?
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From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline
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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