The SQL Server BI Quiz
From MVP Jacob Sebastian, creator of the T-SQL Challenges, there is a BI quiz throughout the month of June. Enter and answer questions each day for the chance to win prizes.
Red Gate extends freedom of mobile SQL monitoring
Red Gate has released SQL Monitor 2.3, providing improved data analysis and the ability to receive alerts through PagerDuty.
Stairway to Data, Level 3: Strings
Character-handling in SQL is not particularly straightforward, and confusion about collation and character encoding is a common cause of problems with searching, joining, and sorting.
The Care of Data
Security is a big concern with data, especially when there is another company involved. Steve Jones notes today that cloud vendors need to beef up their work in this area.
Determine SQL Server memory use by database and object
For many people, the way that SQL Server uses memory can be a bit of an enigma. A large percentage of the memory your SQL Server instance utilizes is consumed by buffer pool (essentially, data). Without a lot of digging, it can be hard to tell which of your databases consume the most buffer pool memory, and even more so, which objects within those databases. This information can be quite useful, for example, if you are considering an application change to split your database across multiple servers, or trying to identify databases that are candidates for consolidation.
Raw Materials - The Vermillion Screen of Death
An elementary error foils Peter's plans for world domination.
The Ad Hoc Change
Almost every DBA will be asked to change data in production at some point. Too often we don't have the tools to allow users to correct errors, but when you make changes, Steve Jones reminds you that you need to be careful and still have a process.
Using Extended Events to troubleshoot SQL Server issues
As a DBA, you'll encounter elusive performance, connectivity and locking problems that you'll need to troubleshoot. There are many tools that you can use such as Profiler. In addition to these tools, SQL Server 2008 offers extended events ("XEvents"), which you can use as a powerful tracing system. By default, the "system_health" extended events session is always on, and can provide you help to locate the source of trouble much faster.
Database testing. The ferret and the rabbit
Can one generalize from agile techniques of application testing to database testing. Phil isn't entirely convinced that it can do any more that remove the distracting trivial bugs in order to allow testers to concentrate on the important issues
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
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
Imagine the Physical World
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Imagine the Physical World
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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