Natural vs. Surrogate Keys in SQL Server : Getting the Proper Perspective
This article demonstrates the relative merits of natural and surrogate keys and benchmarks their performance in different scenarios.
Profiling Database Activity in the Entity Framework
It’s important to profile your database queries to see what happens in response to Entity Framework queries and other data access activities, says Julie Lerman, who gives you the details on several profiling options to improve you coding.
Raffle SQL Server Style
This article presents a possible solution to the raffle logistics employed in SQL Server user group meetings around the world.
Beginning Powershell Companion PDF
Howdy all…as is so often the case, I’m studying something – Powershell – and I’m in need of a reference to help...
Script Task and Event Logging in SSIS
components. These same configuration settings can be leveraged in Script Task, but you also have the option of triggering and tracking events in a considerably more customizable manner. This article explores features that provide this flexibility.
In Case of Breach
Do you know what to do in case of a data breach? Steve Jones talks about the importance of having a "runbook" for security that covers the same types of things you might need to know for disaster recovery.
Tackle the Question of the Day on your cell phone
SQLServerCentral has a mobile site to enable you to access the question of the day from your cell phone.
31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31)
As I mentioned in the introductory post, I’m writing 31 Days of SSIS. Let’s start off this series with a...
January Question: As a DBA, how do you manage your disk space?
Managing disk space is an important resposibility of the DBA, and there are many ways to perform this task. In...
Monitor SQL Server Agent Jobs with Policy Based Management
I need to monitor all the SQL Agents to find out if a job failed in the last 24 hours. Could this be done with policy based management? If so, can you show me how to create the policy?
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
Is Fabric a Reliable Service or a Ripped Resource?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Fabric a Reliable Service...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers