Questions about Comparing Databases with SQL Compare that you were Too Shy to Ask
Phil Factor offers straightforward answers to tricky SQL Compare questions.
Keeping Your Staff
Retaining staff is always a challenge for many organizations. Today Steve talks about the difficulties of doing so and in choosing who to retain.
When one of your DBA colleagues leaves the company, what is your checklist?
A colleague left the company, a couple of days after SQL Server processes start failing...what do you do?
How SQL Prompt Improves SQL Server Database Development
While everyone knows SQL Prompt for its code completion and IntelliSense features, a lot of its extra value comes from features that allow the development team to standardize coding practices and drive up code quality.
Running Container Workloads in Microsoft Azure
Containers are being used by more and more organizations to automate build pipelines in their CICD processes. In this article, Mahendran Purushothaman shows how to automate the creation of Docker containers and a Kubernetes cluster in Azure.
A Getting Started PostgreSQL Tutorial
Introduction to PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is a free and general purpose open source object-relational database system that uses and extends the SQL language. Though originally designed to run on UNIX platforms, PostgreSQL is eligible to run on various platforms such as Linux, macOS, Solaris, and Windows. PostgreSQL databases provide enterprise-class database solutions and are used by […]
Do You Know What the Settings Should Be?
Estate management keeps getting more complex, especially with the move to the cloud, or to multiple clouds. Today Steve talks about the need to ensure you know what the settings are in your environments.
3 Ways to Run DBCC CHECKDB Faster
In my last post, I talked about how you can get 43%-67% faster backups. This time, I’m using that same SQL Server setup to discuss how throwing more CPU cores might help you check for corruption faster if you’ve already got modern fast storage.
Solving the Provisioning Problem in Database Development using Clones
When database development is described, the details often get vague when the data gets beyond spreadsheet-size. There is 'hand-waving' talk of providing databases for each developer, but little detail of how you would provision all the databases that would be needed, at the correct version and with the correct development data, and then keep them all in sync with the source code, as developers commit changes. This article explains the requirements, and how SQL Clone can meet them.
New Stuff Can Be Scary
I'm learning how to be a net controller for a high frequency (HF) radio network. Nets are a fun way to make lots of contacts quickly. Taking part in a net is simple. You check in with the net control and then you can answer calls or make calls (different nets have different rules). It's […]
Blogs
Advice I Like: Fear and Imagination
By Steve Jones
Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not...
Cloud Data Driven User Group 2025 – Slides & Scripts
The slidedeck and the SQL scripts for the session Indexing for Dummies can be...
Leading Through Change: Guiding Teams in Times of Uncertainty
By Chris Yates
Change is not a disruption in technology; it is the rhythm. New frameworks appear,...
Forums
Replication from IBMi DB2 to MS SQL
We have a tool called DB Moto that reads journals (like t-logs) and replicates...
Don't Forget About Financial Skills
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Don't Forget About Financial Skills
Building a Simple SQL/AI Environment
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building a Simple SQL/AI Environment
Question of the Day
Checking Identities
The DBCC CHECKIDENT command is used when working with identity values. I have a table with 10 rows in it that looks like this:
TravelLogID CityID StartDate EndDate 1 1 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 2 2 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 3 3 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 4 4 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 5 5 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 6 6 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 7 7 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 8 8 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 9 9 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 10 10 2025-01-11 2025-01-16The docs for DBCC CHECKIDENT say this if I run with only the table parameter: "If the current identity value for a table is less than the maximum identity value stored in the identity column, it is reset using the maximum value in the identity column. " I run this code:
DELETE dbo.TravelLog WHERE TravelLogID >= 9
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog, RESEED)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
CityID,
StartDate,
EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-09-14', '2025-09-17')
GO
What is the identity value for the new row inserted by the insert statement above? See possible answers