Is SQL Server Mature?
This Friday Steve Jones is wondering if the SQL Server platform does the job well enough for most people, or are there holes that need to be filled with new features.
SQL Authentication Via AD Groups Part II: Who has what access?
In a previous article, we discussed how to liberate the DBA from SQL Logins with AD Groups. A good point was raised: How can the DBA know who has what access? Here is a solution.
Interpreting Missing Index Recommendations
Pinal Dave explains how missing index hints are like restaurant appetizers.
Handling Inconvenient Requests
Brad gives a little guidance on how you might want to respond to inconvenient requests with an eye on doing yourself a favor.
Using a Derived Table to Compare Data with Values from a Previous Year
Comparing year on year sales is a fundamental requirement in much commercial analysis - here you learn how to do this in SQL
Understanding your Azure EA Billing Data and Building a Centralized Data Storage Solution
Many organizations are moving to Azure and other cloud providers. Understanding how resources are being used and what is spent is very important. In this article, Feodor explains his solution for automating the collection of the Enterprise Agreement billing from Azure into an Azure SQL Database where it can be analyzed.
CI and CD Aren't Magic
The techniques for Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) don't make software better by themselves. It takes some investment and work by your staff as well.
Rolling up multiple rows into a single row and column for SQL Server data
Do you need a way to roll-up multiple rows into one row and one column. You know you can roll-up multiple rows into one row using Pivot, but you need all of the data concatenated into a single column in a single row. this tip looks at a simple approach to accomplish this.
Finding a String Anywhere in Another String
Optimize searching for a string within another string with this string storage and indexing technique.
Have You Been Hacked?
Security is a big deal, and Steve Jones wonders if most data professionals would be aware that they had been hacked.
Blogs
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
2025 Wrapped for Steve
By Steve Jones
I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...
Forums
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
reaching ftp thru winscp but erroring in ssis ftp task connection
Hi, below i show various results trying to reach our ftp site (a globalscape...
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers