Getting Approximate Count in Microsoft SQL Server
Sometimes performance is more important than exact accuracy. Learn how to get an approximate count in SQL Server with better performance.
Dealing with Ugly Babies
One thing I learned while working as a database administrator over 17 years is the importance of teamwork across departments. Many times, we have to rely on network and SAN administrator to make changes to their environments in order to make SQL Server run more efficiently. There are times where the storage and network create […]
The Employee Target
Will employee data become a target of hackers? It's likely more a movie plot than reality, at least, Steve hopes so.
Introduction to SQL Server Security — Part 2
In this article, the second in the series, Robert Sheldon demonstrates how to manage the SQL Server security with granting permissions to users, logins, and groups.
What is the Best Value for Fill Factor in SQL Server
Learn about how selecting a SQL Server index fill factor can impact storage and performance. Check out the included scripts to help give you better insight.
A Good Benefit?
A company is letting companies trade vacation for payments against student loan debt.
Using SQL Server and R Services for analyzing DBA Tasks
Article shows how R Services can help database administrators with their daily work
An Introduction to GitHub for DBAs
Distributed source control is really intimidating: branches, pull requests, merges – will somebody just take my code, for crying out loud? Why does it have to be so complicated and involved?
Treat All Sensitive Data as Important
No matter what the reason you have sensitive information, you need to treat it carefully.
Blogs
Who Are You Doing It For?
By Brian Kelley
But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers