What is Denormalization?
Chris Kempster brings us a basic look at the database design topic of denormalization.
Lockwood Tech is now ApexSQL!
The name has changed, but the owner and the upgrade policies remain the same! Follow the link to see the press release that explains the name change.
Introduction to ADO Part 2 - Recordsets
Part two in the Introduction to ADO series, this beginner level article shows how to open a recordset, how to add and edit records, and touches lightly on how to select the best cursor type and locking mode. Good code samples help you get started fast!
Custom Log Shipping
One of our favorite authors is back with a great how-to on log shipping. This isn't the baked in log shipping, this is a code your own solution that gives you a starting point for your situation. Even if you don't need it now, it's worth looking at to gain a better understanding of how shipping works.
Bypassing Triggers
This articles covers a variety of techniques to let you bypass or conditionally execute code in a trigger based on criteria outside of the inserted/deleted tables. It also includes a contest that gives you a chance to win a copy of our book The Best of SQLServerCentral.com 2002!
Find Min/Max Values in a Set
New Author! The author tries to port a solution from Oracle and runs into a problem. Agree with the solution?
Database Migration Tool
New product designed to help you move from one database platform to another. (Not Reviewed)
A Methodology for Determining Fill Factors
New Author! Jeff had some questions about fill factors - but no answers! He did some work and came up with a set of recommendations for how and when to set your fill factors to something other than the default.
Brief Tutorial on Text, Ntext, and Image
Joseph has written a couple articles for us and forwarded this link to an article he wrote recently on text type columns. You can see more of his work at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/jgama/.
Who Cares about FillFactor?
New Author! The first of two articles this week on fill factors, this article looks at the impact fill factor can have on performance and shows you the key tools and counters you use to assess the impact of changes to fill factor.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Knots
By Steve Jones
Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand....
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
Forums
Multiple Deployment Processes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes
How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to...
Upgrading Admin Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries
Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
See possible answers