Admin Rights for Everyone
Steve thinks administrator rights for too many people is a bad idea, but even when it's a limited group, he recommends some sort of governance.
Kerberos Authentication for Aurora PostgreSQL: Mapping AD Groups to Database Roles
Learn how you can enable map your security roles in Aurora PostgreSQL to AD groups using Kerberos.
Stairway to DAX and Power BI Level 19: Dates Functions: STARTOFMONTH(), STARTOFQUARTER(), STARTOFYEAR()
Business Intelligence Architect, Analysis Services Maestro, and author Bill Pearson introduces three DAX Time Intelligence functions related to the Start of Periods: STARTOFMONTH(), STARTOFQUARTER(), and STARTOFYEAR(). He discusses the syntax, uses and operation of each, and then provides hands-on exposure to the function in Power BI.
sp_TexasHoldEm: Multi-Player Poker in T-SQL
Wanna play some Texas Hold ‘Em style poker and make a pile of Query Bucks? Wanna watch other database people playing?
A Challenge of Our Knowledge
AI is changing the world, but it's changing us as well, challenging the things we have been confident in and depended on in our career.
The memory toll of VARCHAR(MAX) in SQL Server
Introduction When designing the tables or writing the stored procedures in SQL Server, we get easily tempted to choose the path of least resistance. When deciding how much space to allocate for a text column in a database table which may contain the description of a product, a product name, or an additional comment/remarks, it […]
How a SQL Server backup can execute attacker code during restore
CVE-2026-47295 is a SQL Server vulnerability that lets a maliciously crafted database backup execute attacker-controlled code with sysadmin privileges during a routine RESTORE DATABASE operation.
An Eventual Consistency Scam
Steve uncovers a scam that relies on data not being consistent between two systems.
How We Reduced SQL Server Infrastructure Costs by 33% on AWS: Lessons From a Database Operations Manager
Read a story about how one company saved substantially on their cloud costs with a few simple changes and no interruptions to service.
Blogs
Keeping Redshift System Table History Past 7 Days with S3 Tables
Redshift keeps its SYS_* monitoring views for seven days in cluster, which is fine...
Updating the Data API Builder
By Steve Jones
I was updating my session for the Data API Builder (DAB) recently, mostly to...
T-SQL Tuesday #202 Invitation: That One SQL Server Outage You’ll Never Forget
I am excited to host T-SQL Tuesday for the first time. I want to...
Forums
Practical Ways to Approach SQL Server Problems and Case Studies
Working with SQL Server can involve more than just writing queries. Understanding database design,...
Measuring Productivity
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Measuring Productivity
Importing Excel files into SQL Server using DuckDB and Python
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Importing Excel files into SQL...
Question of the Day
Tracking All the Queries
I have 3 instances of a brand new long running query that are executing on a SQL Server 2025 instance. Query store is enabled. One of the queries is killed by the administrator, one is cancelled by the user. The other runs to completion. How many rows are in Query Store for this query?
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