The Pencil Analogy
Today we have a guest editorial from Brad Wallace that is an attempt to answer the question 'Why is database engineering so expensive?'
When Did Merge Replication Subscribers Last Sync?
The article presents an automated process to see when remote servers last synced to publisher and send notification reminders.
SQL Server Index Maintenance Performance Tuning for Large Tables
If you think about it carefully, you’ll realise, that index maintenance is necessary and that it makes sense, and that SQL Server is not doing this task automatically according to the book.
Benefits
Benefits for workers seem to be on the decline. Steve Jones talks about the issue, which might be something you give more weight to when choosing your next job.
My Experiences at SQL Saturday 64
A commentary of the experiences of James Dimauro at SQL Saturday #64 in Baton Rouge, LA in August 2011.
Using SQL Monitor in the Real World Webinar
On Tuesday August 23rd, Brad McGehee will take you through real-world examples to show what Red Gate SQL Monitor can do for you.
Configuring the Storage Subsystem
The storage subsystem for a SQL Server can prove to be a bottleneck if the best choices of hardware aren't made, but there are ways to relieve the I/O bottlenecks if the causes are well understood. This requires benchmarking. Glenn Berry gives expert advice on getting to grips with the disk subsystem.
Going Big with SSDs
Solid State Drives are becoming more commonplace in database systems. eBay and Facebook have implemented large SSD systems in their environments. Steve Jones thinks DBAs should be learning more about how SSDs affect SQL Server.
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
Searching for my own posts
I have a really stupid question... Is there an easy way to search for...
How to Work with On-Premises AI Models to Generate T-SQL Code
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Work with On-Premises...
Escaping Strings
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Escaping Strings
Question of the Day
Escaping Strings
The STRING_ESCAPE() function requires 2 parameters in SQL Server 2025. The first is a string of text and the second is the type of escape rules being used. What are the options for the second parameter?
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