Taking Stock of Your Career
With almost a quarter of 2020 gone, Steve notes it's be time to stock of your career.
Tagging SQL Server Changes in SQL Monitor
How to use RAISERROR() in T-SQL to send annotations to SQL Monitor, so you can observe the direct impact of application tasks, or server changes, on the SQL Server metrics.
A Data Controversy
A request to rapidly gather data caused some friction recently. Is that something that organizations ought to be prepared to handle?
Evaluating SQL Data Catalog using Docker Containers
Richard Macaskill shows how to use Docker Compose to get SQL Data Catalog up and running in a container, in your SQL Server test lab, and then use it to evaluate its data discovery and categorization capabilities on a containerized SQL Server instance.
Virtual Reality
While we are centuries away from the Holodeck experience, we can take advantage of today’s technology for fun or education.
The Challenge of Contracting
The nature of work might be changing, and Steve has a few thoughts on thinking about your job as always contracting.
Storage 101: Understanding the NAND Flash Solid State Drive
Today, most organization are using solid-state drives for everything from laptops to enterprise database storage and virtual machines. In this article, Robert Sheldon explains how NAND flash solid-state drives work.
Using SQL Monitor Groups in PowerShell
Not only are SQL Monitor Groups probably the neatest and most maintainable way of ensuring that all your SQL Servers have the best possible configuration of alerts, but they represent a powerful way of categorizing your SQL Server estate. In this article, I'll show how to use the SQL Monitor PowerShell API to export these groups, save their settings onto a configuration management system, or compare groups of settings to see the differences between them.
Blogs
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
SQL Server Journey Part 2: Modern Era (2017 – 2026) – AI/Cloud First
By Vinay Thakur
Following up on my Part 1 baseline, the journey from 2017 onward changed how...
Forums
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
An Unusual Identity
Comments posted to this topic are about the item An Unusual Identity
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers