The harsh reality of charitable IT work
At work in IT, we can wander around looking important with no apparent useful skills whatsoever. When working outside the bubble of the industry, things are different.
A New Recovery Tool for Your Toolbelt
Learning a new skill is always helpful, especially for backup and restore. Steve Jones talks about an idea from the SQLCAT team.
Azure Text Analytics and Power BI
In this tip we look at how to analyze textual data to gain insight from freeform text using Azure Text Analytics and Power BI.
Deploying Data and Schema Together with SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation
You want to use SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation (SCA) to create or update a database, and at the same time ensure that its data is as you expect. You want to avoid running any additional PowerShell scripting every time you do it, and you want to keep everything in source control, including the data. You just want to keep everything simple. Phil Factor demonstrates how it's done, by generating MERGE scripts from a stored procedure.
Querying Master Database DMVs in Azure SQL Database
Learn how you can query information in the logical server's master database from an Azure SQL Database.
From Source Control to Database using SQL Compare Command Line
Giorgi Abashidze explains how his team use SQL Compare Command line to automate database deployments for their customers, without having access to the real staging or production databases, merely by using our development database contained under TFS Source Control.
How Does Accelerated Database Recovery Work?
Accelerated Database Recovery is new with SQL Server 2019 and Azure SQL Database and used to decrease the time for rolling back large operations and database recovery. In this article, Forrest McDaniel explains how it works.
Analyze and Improve SQL Server Backup Schedule
Daily Operations | Database Backup Schedule | Time Savings - In this tip we look at a script you can use to help you better schedule when SQL Server backups are run so there is not contention with backups running on multiple instances at the same time.
Product Platform Teams
Today Steve notes that DevOps isn't going to eliminate Ops, even if developers support their own applications.
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...
SQL Server Still Wins
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Still Wins
DBCC CHECKDB Limits I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item DBCC CHECKDB Limits I
Question of the Day
DBCC CHECKDB Limits I
When running DBCC CHECKDB on SQL Server 2025, can I include the Resource Database?
See possible answers