Page splits are an often-overlooked performance killer in SQL Server. In this article, we take a forensic look at how serial inserts differ from mid-table inserts, revealing why inserting rows out of order causes hidden page splits, increased IO, and fragmentation. Using a wide-column table, we demonstrate both scenarios and decode their impact with page-level analysis.
TEXT, NTEXT, and IMAGE columns have been deprecated for nearly two decades, yet they still silently haunt many SQL Server environments. This article explains their hidden limitations with practical demos and shows why migrating to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) is critical for modern performance, maintainability, and future upgrades.
When you run a CI/CD pipeline, you often need confidential values like passwords, authentication tokens, service principal secrets etc. when you want to deploy a certain artefact. You don’t want to store those secrets directly in your pipelines as this might pose a considerable security leak. Instead, you either store them as secret variables, or […]
Introduction ChatGPT includes custom GPTs. You can create your own custom GPT. In this article, we will demonstrate how to create a custom GPT expert in SQL Server. Requirements To create your own GPT, you need to use the paid version of ChatGPT. First, go to ChatGPT. Secondly, if you don’t have the paid version, […]
Most DBAs are familiar with full and differential ...
Large Language Models (LLMs) like Anthropic’s Cl...
Overview MongoDB is a popular NoSQL database used for building modern, scalable applications. In this article, we’ll cover how to set up MongoDB on Windows and connect to it using Node.js. We will also perform some basic Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations to ensure we understand fully on how Node.js can be made […]
Is your SQL Server truly secure? Here are the top cyber threats targeting it. Learn how you can stop them before it strikes.
Learn how to connect to a PostgreSQL database from Python with this popular library.
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
By Steve Jones
Don’t reserve your kindest praise for a person until their eulogy. Tell them while...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Change Tracking Data Retention Options
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Requiring Technical Debt Payments
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using the FP-Growth Algorithm to...
If I am running this code:
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks2017 SET CHANGE_TRACKING = ON (CHANGE_RETENTION=4 xxx);What are the possible choices for xxx? See possible answers