T-SQL Context Switching
Being a standards advocate, Steve has a few thoughts on team code structure.
DevOps Self-Service for Databases with SQL Clone
Phil Factor describes the freedom of being able to "self-serve" databases, during testing and development, and explains how it works with SQL Clone.
How to Use Parameters in PowerShell
Every DBA should have basic PowerShell skills. In this article, Greg Moore explains how to write a PowerShell script that takes parameters.
Which Service in Azure Should You Use for SQL?
I remember when Azure SQL Database was first released in 2010. Microsoft has tweaked the name a couple of times over the years, and back then it was called SQL Azure. The largest database you could create was just 50 GB, and there were quite a few restrictions, such as heaps not being supported. Since […]
Documenting with Tests
The idea of using more unit tests to improve code quality has been around for some time. However Steve Jones notes today that some people use tests for documentation.
Real-time moving averages for IoT with R
Computing an average over all your data is easy, but what if your data arrives incrementally and you need to be able to compute real-time averages on the fly? That's what we are going to look at.
SQL Server Security Part 2
In part one Chris Kempster covered a variety of security recommendations primarily for production systems. In Part two of this series he continues to explore security at a variety of levels where you may not realize you are vulnerable.
Database Build Blockers: Cross-Server Database Dependencies
Phil Factor demonstrates how to tackle builds when databases make cross-server references. The technique uses synonyms to represent the remote objects, and local 'stub' objects to overcome the problems caused by 'missing references' when building the individual objects.
Entity Framework Core Raw SQL Queries Examples
In this article we look at how to run SQL Server queries with Entity Framework Core using the DbSet.FromSql method, parameterized queries, stored procedures and using the Database.ExecuteSqlCommand property.
Getting a List of the Striped Backup Files
If you have a list of striped backup files, how can you find the latest backup set? Steve Jones uses dbatools and PowerShell to automate this process.
Blogs
Upgrading SQL Server Containers on the Laptop
By Steve Jones
I don’t have SQL Server installed on my laptop. In an effort to keep...
How to Find Expensive Queries in Amazon Redshift
Slow-running queries can degrade your Redshift cluster’s performance and lead to increased costs. Identifying...
The Notification Trap: How Input Fatigue Is Killing Deep Work in Tech
By gbargsley
If you've been here before, you know this blog is usually about SQL Server,...
Forums
SQL 2019 instance with AG, across 2 Windows 2016 OS servers - OSin-place upgrade
Hi all Can I get some perspective from the community please on performing in-place...
How Long is a Long I/O?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Long is a Long...
T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL...
Question of the Day
How Long is a Long I/O?
In SQL Server 2025, a long I/O is recorded in the error log with message 833. How long much an I/O request be outstanding before this message is written to the log?
See possible answers