Replication – Accommodating Application Inserts
Recently I have been involved in lots of projects involving replication. I have done some things to make replication work...
SQL Backup 6: Wind of Change
One could be forgiven for thinking that there's little more you can do with third-party backup software than just ...er... backup databases. Shawn McGehee gives us his personal take on the implications of the improvements that have been made to SQL Backup for version 6.
Test Drive
Hiring a new employee can be a hit or miss proposition. We often don't learn much about how someone will work from an interview. Steve Jones talks about an alternative way to hire someone by taking them for a test drive.
Test Drive
Hiring a new employee can be a hit or miss proposition. We often don't learn much about how someone will work from an interview. Steve Jones talks about an alternative way to hire someone by taking them for a test drive.
Test Drive
Hiring a new employee can be a hit or miss proposition. We often don't learn much about how someone will work from an interview. Steve Jones talks about an alternative way to hire someone by taking them for a test drive.
DBA: Mentor vs. Protector
To mentor or to protect data, what is the role of the DBA? A guest editorial from Matt Simmons.
Disk Partitiona Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
Disk partition alignment is a powerful tool for improving SQL Server performance. Configuring optimal disk performance is often viewed as much art as science. A best practice that is essential yet often overlooked is disk partition alignment. Windows Server 2008 attempts to align new partitions out-of-the-box, yet disk partition alignment remains a relevant technology for partitions created on prior versions of Windows.
Evil Code
/*
A couple
of years ago, when I wrote the Simple-Talk Prettifier that is really no more than a stored
procedure...
How to Specify Command Line Parameters for DTEXEC Using Command Files
Everything I've read about the built-in configuration options is that you can retrieve values from a SQL Server table, an XML file, etc. but I really prefer to just use the command line options. I'm currently specifying 10 or more command line options on average. Do you have any ideas on a better way to do this?
TSQL Challenge #12 - Build sequential ranges of dates with propagation to missing values
Take the new challenge from MVP Jacob Sebastian. Deadline is next Monday.
Blogs
Monday Monitor Tips: Intelligent Alert Thresholds
By Steve Jones
At the recent Redgate Summit in Chicago, I demo’d (lightly) the ML based Alert...
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
Forums
String_agg not working as needed
I'm trying to get this string_agg to put all the 'comments' into one result...
Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Odd Sequences
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Odd Sequences
Question of the Day
Odd Sequences
What values are returned from this code?
CREATE SEQUENCE NumericSequence
AS NUMERIC(5,1)
START WITH 1.0
INCREMENT BY 0.1;
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO See possible answers