Hands-On with Columnstore Indexes: Part 2 Best Practices and Guidelines
In the second article of this series, Edward Pollack demonstrates some ways to design and populate a columnstore index to get even better performance.
Carefully Giving Normal Users Security Permissions
When we need to delegate work to less privileged users, Steve has an idea.
Automate Responses to Bad Deployments with SQL Monitor
Jamie Wallis explains how SQL Monitor can both reveal quickly who ran a deployment, and when, and automate the incident-response workflow to ensure it's dealt with swiftly. By extending such workflows to development and test servers, as well as production, the feedback cycle starts earlier, and you can stop problems from ever reaching the users.
Install SQL Server Integration Services in Visual Studio 2019
Learn the step by step process to install SQL Server 2019 Integration Services in Visual Studio as well as the history for the tool.
An Introduction: Level 1 of the Stairway to Row-Level Security
Learn the basics of how Row-Level Security works in SQL Server.
Heaps in SQL Server: Part 2 Optimizing Reads
In the second article of this series, Uwe Ricken discusses ways to affect the performance of queries involving heaps, including the TOP operator, compression, and partitioning.
Using SQL Data Compare to Sync Reference Data
Let's say your QA team maintain two similar test databases. They run tests to verify that different versions of the same application still produce the same, correct results. Therefore, any differences in the test data, between the two databases, needs to be corrected before the tests start. This is the sort of task for which SQL Data Compare is ideally suited, and Bob Sheldon explains how it all works.
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
Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Odd Sequences
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Odd Sequences
Everything is the right question away
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Everything is the right question...
Question of the Day
Odd Sequences
What values are returned from this code?
CREATE SEQUENCE NumericSequence
AS NUMERIC(5,1)
START WITH 1.0
INCREMENT BY 0.1;
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO See possible answers