I/O Requests Taking Longer Than 15 Seconds To Complete
This article describes the warning "SQL Server has encountered n occurrence(s) of I/O requests taking longer than 15 seconds to complete on file <filename> in database <dbname>".
SQL Server Security Audit (Part 2) - Database Level Audit
The second in the Security Audit series looks at securing an individual database.
You Shouldn't Have Done That
We sometimes find ourselves in situations that we didn't count on. Or that aren't necessarily a mistake we made in the installation. Steve Jones reminds us that we should keep that in mind when someone is asking for our help.
You Shouldn't Have Done That
We sometimes find ourselves in situations that we didn't count on. Or that aren't necessarily a mistake we made in the installation. Steve Jones reminds us that we should keep that in mind when someone is asking for our help.
You Shouldn't Have Done That
We sometimes find ourselves in situations that we didn't count on. Or that aren't necessarily a mistake we made in the installation. Steve Jones reminds us that we should keep that in mind when someone is asking for our help.
Go Get an iPhone
This week Mobile BI is on the radar at Microsoft. Steve Jones comments on what this might mean for the database people in the future.
SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Enhancements Part - V
The fifth installment of Arshad Ali's series examines the spatial data types in SQL Server 2008. These new types allow the use of geospatial data in SQL Server applications.
What Data Should You Protect?
Perhaps we need to protect more data, according to Steve Jones. With the ability to identify most people with 10 digits of information, Steve Jones asks you to really think about what you need to store.
Building Code that Promotes Plan Re-usage
This article, the third in the T-SQL Best Practices series, discusses how to write your code to promote cached plan re-usage. Understanding how white space and comments impact whether a plan is cached or an existing plan is re-used can help you minimize the number of plans your application is caching.
How to find, compare and use the exact same session settings as another user in SQL Server
When diagnosing issues in SQL Server I've found that sometimes I need to be able to mimic a user's session state when attempting to repeat an error they may be receiving. The smallest differences can completely change the outcome, so I need to ensure all the session settings (QUOTED_IDENTIFIER, ANSI_NULLS, and so forth) are identical between the production session and my test session. Is there an easy way to determine these settings with a single query?
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #198–Change Detection
By Steve Jones
This month we have a new host, Meagan Longoria, who graciously agreed to help...
Redgate and Rome
By Steve Jones
I’m at the UK Redgate office today, meeting with senior leaders in all areas...
Quick Tip: Check Most DTU Expensive Queries in Azure SQL Database
Optimizing Azure SQL Database performance often begins with identifying the most resource-intensive queries. Understanding...
Forums
Failure: "External table is not in the expected format."
Good Afternoon, 1) I run a SSIS Package (.dtsx) in Visual Studio and it...
Failure: "External table is not in the expected format."
Good Afternoon, 1) I run a SSIS Package (.dtsx) in Visual Studio and it...
Permissions Removal When Changing Object Schema
When the schema of an object is changed, SQL Server wipes out the previous...
Question of the Day
The Distance Metric
In the new VECTOR_DISTANCE() function in SQL Server 2025, the first parameter is the distance_metric. What is this?
See possible answers