Should You Learn R or Python?
Both Python and R have become very popular languages in the last few years, especially among data professionals. Which should you learn or use? Steve has a few thoughts.
SQL Server 2016 - Always Encrypted
Always Encrypted is a new security feature which was introduced in SQL Server 2016. Always Encrypted is a technology to ensure the data stored in a database remains encrypted at all times during SQL Server query processing. Always Encrypted allows clients to encrypt sensitive data, such as credit card numbers and national identification numbers, inside the […]
Creating Idempotent DDL Scripts for Database Migrations
How to write idempotent DDL scripts that Flyway can run several times on a database, such as after a hotfix has already been applied directly to the production database, without causing errors.
SQL Server plan cache mining – Plan attributes
Edward Pollack demonstrates how SQL Server plan cache mining can uncover a wealth of information to help with troubleshooting performance issues.
Hidden Pitfalls with INNER JOIN and NOT IN Operators
I want to show you how two common operators can deceive you into believing you have constructed a proper SQL statement for your solution. We may want to filter results in a table by using using a IN/NOT IN or a INNER JOIN/LEFT JOIN to another table. There are a couple of hidden dangers here […]
How to choose between SQL and NoSQL databases
Organizations have many choices when it comes to databases. In this article, Robert Sheldon explains how to choose between SQL and NoSQL databases.
Measuring Team Performance: Calculate LeadTime metric using JIRA and GitHub data
In this article we look at how to measure lead time for development projects using Python along with GitHub and JIRA.
A Step by Step Guide to the Availability Group (AG) Listener
Availability databases hosted on SQL Server Always On Availability Groups (AG) can be connected using a unique Virtual Network Name (VNN), called the Availability Group Listener. When an Availability Group is enabled, clients can connect to databases in both primary and secondary replicas without explicitly specifying the SQL Server instance name. You don’t even need […]
Blogs
Database AI Agents: The Read-Only Rule
By Arun Sirpal
Fourth in a series on Ai and databases. What Read-Only Advisory Actually Means A...
Creating a SQL Stored Procedure to Load a SCD2
By DataOnWheels
This is a blog that I am writing for future me and hopefully it’ll...
Funny Money: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
While wandering around the documentation looking for some Question of the Day topics, I...
Forums
Backup Availability Group
Please I am hoping for some feedback Specifications: Windows Server 2022 SQL Server 2022...
How Do the Experts Become Experts?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Do the Experts Become...
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 4 – Preparing for Production Deployment
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments...
Question of the Day
Secure Communications
As of June 2026, what is the best version of TLS to use with SQL Server?
See possible answers