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
Learn about Modern Microsoft Apps in San Diego
By Steve Jones
I wrote about learning today for the editorial: I Can’t Make You Learn. I...
How To Deploy Fabric SQL and Azure SQL Databases with Azure DevOps
By ReviewMyDB
Fabric has CI/CD built in, but if you've tried to use it for database...
A New Word: Attriage
By Steve Jones
attriage – n. the state of having lost all control over how you feel...
Forums
Forward Deployed Engineers
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TRY_PARSE vs TRY_CONVERT in SQL Server: From Basics to Practical Usage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item TRY_PARSE vs TRY_CONVERT in SQL...
DBCC CHECKDB Limits II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item DBCC CHECKDB Limits II
Question of the Day
DBCC CHECKDB Limits II
I have a SQL Server 2025 database that I want to check for corruption every night. One of the things we do is disable indexes used for ETL loads during the weekend and re-enable them on Monday morning. If we run DBCC over the weekend, are our disabled indexes checked for consistency?
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