Hacking the Admin
A Twitter hack brings into the question of who can make changes in production for Steve.
Stairway to Columnstore Indexes Level 13: Improvements in SQL Server 2016
This stairway series was started in 2015. As such, the focus was on SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 only. When SQL Server 2016 was released, with lots of improvements in the columnstore technology, I decided to finish the planned levels with the original focus on SQL Server 2012 and 2014, and add one extra level with a brief overview of the improvements available in SQL Server 2016.
Automate Database Restore for SQL Server
In this article we look at how to automate a SQL Server database restore using a PowerShell script.
TDE BYOK and Geo-Replication in Azure SQL DB
Recently a customer asked me for help with setting up a test of an Azure SQL Database in the single database tier with Geo-Replication to work with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) with a customer-managed key, also known as Bring Your Own Key (BYOK). It is very simple to do it when you use service-managed keys, […]
Power BI Incremental Refresh for SQL Sources
In this article we look at the incremental refresh feature when working with Power BI data sources and how to implement for your reports.
A Dedicated Space
Today Steve looks at one possible future of offices, which might be something we own.
Loading data in Azure Synapse Analytics using Azure Data Factory
This article shows a basic Azure Data Factory pipeline to load data into Azure Synapse.
Getting Started with GitFlow
In this article, Diogo Souza explains GitFlow, a branching model for Git. He demonstrates how to work with GitFlow to create and deploy a feature and a hotfix to GitHub.
Power BI Incremental Refresh for SQL Sources
In this article we look at the incremental refresh feature when working with Power BI data sources and how to implement for your reports.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers