Using All Your Tools
Steve looks at a number of tools that you should spend time learning and building a level of comfort that enables you to use them in your daily work.
Performance Tuning Using Extended Events: Part 1
In this article, learn how to identify performance tuning opportunities using Extended Events.
What's a forgivable mistake?
Today Steve wonders if your company is understanding of your human frailty.
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.
Understanding Azure Storage Options
The choices found when provisioning storage in Azure can be overwhelming. In this article, Monica Rathbun explains the options to help your organization research which storage might be right for your solution.
Expect the Unexpected with DiRT
Disaster recovery is no joke at Google, where they really test their systems, people, and processes.
UNION vs. UNION ALL in SQL Server
Sometimes there is a need to combine data from multiple tables or views into one comprehensive dataset. This may be for like tables within the same database or maybe there is a need to combine like data across databases or even across servers. I have read about the UNION and UNION ALL commands, but how do these work and how do they differ?
Proactive Performance Tuning
Being proactive in trying to improve your system is good, but sometimes your team might cause you problems with their efforts.
Stairway to Biml 9 – Refactoring a Simple Custom Biml Framework
This level of the Stairway to Biml examines how to refactor your Biml into an easier to maintain format.
HSA for Training
Is there a good way to ensure employees get trained? Steve has a few thoughts today on an idea that could help.
Blogs
Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK
Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK Every morning somebody on the team runs the...
A New Word: Mauerbauertraurigkeit
By Steve Jones
mauerbauertraurigkeit – n. inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company...
Methodology for dealing with bad data in production
By Brian Kelley
Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...
Forums
Why SQL Server Database Attach fails and how to repair it
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why SQL Server Database Attach...
Fixing P1 Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing P1 Queries
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT() IV
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code:
select bit_count('A')
What is returned? See possible answers