Help Us Help You
SQLServerCentral has a new place for discussions and Steve Jones hopes you use it. It's a forum built for critiquing and discussion the presentations that the SQL Server community shares with each other.
Is hyper-threading still relevant for SQL Server?
There still seems to be a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt, in the community, with regard to use of Hyper-threading (HT) with SQL Server workloads. So, how and when should it be used?
TSQL Challenge 48 - Parse and evaluate Arithmetic Expressions using TS
This challenge is to parse and evaluate arithmetic expressions using TSQL.
Another Example of CPU Throttling Due to Balanced Power Plan in Windows Server 2008 R2
Here is another example CPU throttling from someone who had a server running with the default “Balanced” Power Plan in...
BIT of a Problem
The BIT data type is an awkward fit for a SQL database. It doesn't have just two values, and it can do unexpected things in expressions. What is worse, it is a flag rather than a predicate, and so its overuse, along with bit masks, is a prime candidate for being listed as a 'SQL Code Smell'. Joe Celko makes the case.
You Need Two SLAs for Disaster Recovery
Continuing on with my MCM prep, I was listening to the High Availability/DR prep module today and I was once...
Changing the Past
This Friday Steve Jones explores archived data. Can you restate past results or change old data? This week Steve Jones asks how data professionals feel about this and what guidance they give to their customers.
31 Days of SSIS – Environmental Variable(17/31)
31 Days of SSIS
It’s time to go back to discussing the environment when it comes to SSIS packages. For the...
Getting Fast Counts of Large Service Broker Queues
Getting Fast Counts of Large Service Broker Queues
This question regarding getting a fast count from a service broker queue came...
Blogs
Funny Money: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
While wandering around the documentation looking for some Question of the Day topics, I...
Why Database AI Agents need Layers?
By Arun Sirpal
Third part in my Ai series with databases. When building AI solutions within the...
Un-Migrating From the Cloud: T-SQL Tuesday #199
By Steve Jones
This month we have a very interesting invitation from Koen Verbeeck. He has hosted...
Forums
How Do the Experts Become Experts?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Do the Experts Become...
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 4 – Preparing for Production Deployment
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments...
Secure Communications
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Secure Communications
Question of the Day
Secure Communications
As of June 2026, what is the best version of TLS to use with SQL Server?
See possible answers