Google's Expensive Confusing Rules
Google was recently fined for GDPR violations. Steve wonders if their confusing documentation and tools are the problem.
SQL Server Perfmon counters that are still interesting in 2019
Years ago, my first go-to tool for performance tuning was Performance Monitor: it was available everywhere, worked in all versions, and gave me a lot of useful information without paying for a monitoring tool. Since then, I’ve moved on – wait stats are a much better starting point – but there are still 3 good Perfmon counters that I rely on.
Hard Drive Reliability
Backblaze releases their new hard drive stats and there are some interesting items in the report.
Using Computed Columns
Although computed columns are from the beginning of SQL Server, not everyone knows how to use them. This article will help you better understand how it works.
Infrastructure Planning for a SQL Server Data Warehouse
In this tip we look at some things you should think about when planning for a SQL Server data warehouse.
A Capital Error
It's not the zero'th time Phil Factor has complained about the madness of a binary collation.
DR Prep Can Miss the Little Things
A minor disaster for Steve reveals some cracks in his pre-DR planning.
Empty Thoughts: Working with NULL
Whether or not to have NULLable columns in a table can be a religious debate, and how missing data is represented should be carefully considered during database design. In this article, Joe Celko considers the ways that SQL Server handles NULLs in several situations.
Learn More than Technology
There is more to our lives than work, and Steve asks that we learn more about other parts of life.
Using SQL Server and R Services for analyzing Sales data (Part 3)
Using R integration for analyzing sales data in WideWorldImporters database
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?
See possible answers