Level 6 of the Stairway to Synapse Analytics: Dedicated SQL Pool
This next level of the Stairway to Synapse Analysis Services looks at the Dedicated SQL Pool.
Reflecting on the Mythical Man Month
Steve looks back at the Mythical Man Month, a book every software engineer and manager should read.
SQL Automate - A DBA's Time-Saving Toolkit
SQLAutomate is a lightweight PowerShell tool that simplifies SQL Server deployment by automating both installation and post-installation configuration. Whether you're setting up one instance or dozens, this guide shows how to use SQLAutomate to save time and reduce manual work.
Index Scans and Table Scans
There are several things that you can do to improve performance by throwing more hardware at the problem, but usually the place you get the most benefit from is when you tune your queries. One common problem that exists is the lack of indexes or incorrect indexes and therefore SQL Server has to process more data to find the records that meet the queries criteria. These issues are known as Index Scans and Table Scans.
Managing Fabric Lakehouse objects with the new CLI: Data Engineering with Fabric
In this next article, we are going to explore how to install, configure and use the command line to manage a couple different Fabric Lakehouse’s.
Purging Data from a Large Table in SQL Server
Purging data from a table is a common database maintenance task to prevent it from growing too large or to stay in compliance with data retention. When dealing with small amounts of data, this can be accomplished by a simple delete with no issues; however, with larger tables, this task can be problematic. Deleting records requires a lock that can block other processes from writing or even reading the data (depending on your isolation level). In this article I will share a technique I have used to work with some very large tables.
Helping Students with a Data Professional Career
Steve has advice for students looking to become data professionals.
DMV Comparison for SQL Server 2019 vs Azure SQL Database
What DMVs were added to Azure SQL Databases, and which DMVs are missing from Azure SQL Databases but still exist on SQL Server 2019 or other versions?
Deleting a Database
Who among us hasn't deleted a production data file? Steve hopes most of us have not.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
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