Concurrency Challenges Around Schema Changes
A post on distributed systems and how schema changes are handled caught Steve's eye. See if you agree with how he thinks this should work.
SQL Server Resumable Index Operations
The ability to pause and then resume index rebuilds has been added to SQL Server. This is a fantastic feature, and with the release of SQL Server 2019, we can now replicate it on the actual create index process. Learn how to use this feature in this short article.
[Video] Office Hours: Professional Development & Training Questions
A lot of today’s questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento have a common theme, but it’s just a coincidence. Listen to the answers.
Cheat Sheet for SQL Server DBAs - Monitoring Current Activity, Blocking and Performance
It seems like every DBA has a USB stick or a shared drive filled with scripts they can pull up in almost any situation. How can I build such a library of T-SQL files?
Call for Panelists – WIT Panel at PASS Data Community Summit, 2023
Take a moment and submit to be on the WIT panel at the PASS Data Community Summit in Seattle this November. We would like to see more women taking part in this.
How to Find the SQL Server Version
This article shows a number of ways in which you can find out the version of your instance.
The Reliable DBA
One of the important qualities for a database is being reliable. However, as your organization grows, you might need to ensure that your account for your people as well.
Pipelining Configuration Information Securely to Flyway
This article demonstrates two techniques for allowing Flyway to read extra configuration information from a secure location, possibly encrypted. The first technique pipes the contents of the config file to flyway via STDIN, and the second uses PowerShell splatting. This makes it much simpler to use Flyway to manage multiple development copies of a database using role-base security.
Troubleshoot SQL Server Deadlocks in Stored Procedures
Deadlocks can occur in any database system, and SQL Server is no exception. In this article, we look at the steps I used to detect and resolve deadlocks in stored procedures.
Blogs
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
SQL Server Journey Part 2: Modern Era (2017 – 2026) – AI/Cloud First
By Vinay Thakur
Following up on my Part 1 baseline, the journey from 2017 onward changed how...
Forums
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
An Unusual Identity
Comments posted to this topic are about the item An Unusual Identity
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers