In theory, SQL Server performance monitoring is pretty simple: 1. Review the server’s top wait types, 2. Find the queries causing those wait types, 3. Fix those queries, or improve the way the server reacts to them (indexes, settings, etc.). But in practice, step 2 is awful because:
This editorial was originally published on Jun 17, 2020. It is being republished as Steve is out of town. Let us know if you've changed your SQL IDEs since then. Most of us use SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) to manage our SQL Server instances or to write database code. However, Microsoft does give us […]
SQL Server 2025 shipped without SSRS. If you're managing paginated reports, your options just narrowed; but they're not what most people think. I evaluated all 10 realistic migration paths. Here's an honest comparison, including the one I built.
Explore the mechanics of the SOFTMAX function in SQL Server. Transform scores into probabilities with this essential tool.
New AI tools are discovering older vulnerabilities in software, as well as new ones. Get ready for a bunch of patches to come out.
Learn a quick way to calculate distances without resorting to spatial calculations.
Steve has thoughts about those of us struggling to keep up with technology changes.
Learn how to split strings efficiently in T-SQL using STRING_SPLIT and the REGEXP_SPLIT_TO_TABLE function in SQL Server 2025.
Level 2 formalizes the behavioral guarantees that a changeset must provide in order to be safely deployed and rolled back. It introduces the deployment contract, checkpoint semantics, and the structural scope of Create and Rollback scripts. Data changes are addressed through a dedicated Update mechanism, with clear boundaries and limitations. By the end of this level, a changeset becomes a predictable and well-defined unit that can be reasoned about independently of execution context.
Single points of failure are bad, but what if an employee's action is the single point of failure for access to services? That would be a bad day for any organization.
By ReviewMyDB
A behind-the-scenes look at Day of Data Jacksonville 2026, the transition from SQL Saturday,...
You run EXPLAIN ANALYZE on a slow query, stare at the plan, and something...
By Steve Jones
la guadière – n. a glint of goodness you notice in something that you...
hi, we couldnt get our upstream data source developers to supply what is sometimes...
Are there any good articles on all the trace flags that are enabled on...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Data Model Matters
I run the SQLCMD utility as follows:
lcmd -S localhost -EI then type this (the 1> is the prompt):
1> select @@version goIf I hit enter, what happens? See possible answers