Azure Data Factory vs SSIS vs Azure Databricks
In this article we cover some things you should consider when determining whether to use Azure Data Factory, SSIS or Azure Databricks.
The importance of remote monitoring
Monitoring should be able to happen no matter where you are located. This year organizations around the globe had to adapt to many new challenges including a distributed workforce and managing their estate when they can’t be in the office. This blog outlines the reasons and benefits of adopting remote monitoring.
How Bad are Bad Page Splits – The Rest of the Story
In Part 1 of this article we looked at a specific use case (probably exaggerated) that gave us an idea about how CPU and IO performance might be affected by a bad page split. We continue this analysis looking at what really happens to the data on the leaf pages of a clustered index with […]
Easily manage SQL Server licensing with SQL Monitor 10.1
SQL Monitor 10.1 now gives you a comprehensive overview of your SQL Server licensing, so you know which licenses are in use, and which versions are on which servers. This simplifies license auditing and lets you unearth misconfigurations that could potentially cost you money. The new version also integrates with Microsoft Teams and Splunk, and supports complex Active Directory environments.
Tempdb – Here’s a Problem You Didn’t Know You Have
Because of its many roles, tempdb is the source of performance issues in SQL Server, and there are recommended configuration changes to mitigate this. In this article, Fabiano Amorim demonstrates another issue with tempdb performance that you probably didn’t know about.
A 2020 Look at Software Developers
The results of a survey on software developers has some interesting insights.
Stairway to U-SQL Level 22: Creating a Custom Extractor
Throughout this series, we’ve consistently dealt with delimited text files; comma and tab, for instance. We’ve used the U-SQL built-in extractors to process these files. But what if we need to deal with different types of file, like JSON, XML or fixed width? That’s where custom extractors come in. U-SQL provides us with the ability […]
SQL Server Data Masking with DbDefence
Data breaches are becoming too common place with some accounts reporting more than 1000 breaches per year with close to 50 million records exposed yearly in the financial, business, education, government and healthcare industries. Learn about how DbDefence performs SQL Server Data Masking as a portion of a three pronged approach to protect your data.
5 Reasons You Must Start Capturing Baseline Data
It is widely acknowledged within the SQL Server community that baselines represent valuable information that DBAs should capture. Unfortunately, very few companies manage to log and report on this information, and DBAs are then forced to troubleshoot from the hip and scramble to find evidence to prove that the database is not the problem. This article will make a compelling argument for why DBAs must start capturing baseline information, and will create a roadmap for subsequent posts.
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