Azure Data Studio - A SandDance demo
Learn how you can get better charting in Azure Data Studio with SandDance.
Dry Runs for Database Migrations using Flyway Teams
How Dry Run scripts work, and how they can be used to deliver a single-script release artifact to Staging, verify placeholder substitutions in SQL migration scripts, and simply team code reviews.
Using SQL Server sequence objects
SQL Server sequence objects have several properties that control how they behave. Greg Larson explains the options of using SQL Server sequence objects.
Holiday Fun for Your Career
The Advent of Code is live, and Steve finds it to be a fun way to take a break during your day.
SQL Server Data Masking: a comparison with Gallium Data
Introduction In SQL Server 2016, Microsoft introduced a new feature called dynamic data masking, which allows you to mask the values of certain columns and keep that data hidden from certain users, without having to modify your applications. Let's take a look at how SQL Server does data masking, and compare it to the way Gallium Data […]
When to Use a Database
While relational developers and administrators might always want to use a database, that might not be the case for those that analyze data. Steve suggests you help them see the value of a database platform.
Top Query Search in SQL Monitor
SQL Monitor v12.0 has added a new Query Text Search feature to allow users to search the text of the most expensive queries that executed on a SQL Server instance over a period. Here's what it does, and how it works.
Trusting STRING_SPLIT() order in Azure SQL Database
Learn about the changes to the STRING_SPLIT function in Azure SQL Database that allows you to specify ordinal position of the output.
Building a Production Database
Lessons learned from building a database caught Steve's eye, and he has a few comments.
Blogs
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...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
See possible answers