Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Good Co-workers
It is important to have people that do good work and are good to work with.
Key Lookups and ColumnStore Indexes
Erik figures out why SQL Server really doesn't like combining these two things in a query plan.
The Cloud is Better In At Least One Way
Azure SQL Database has a lot of integrity checks. Probably more than your local instance.
Timing is Everything
Phil Factor on the wise habit of timing your database routines, to avoid relying on received wisdom about performance.
The Power of Python and SQL Server 2017
Python is new to SQL Server 2017. It is intended primarily to allow the use of Python-based machine-learning within SQL Server, but it can be used for far more than this, with any Python libraries or Frameworks. To provide an example of what is possible, Hitendra shows how to use the feature securely to provide intelligent application caching, where SQL Server can automatically indicate when data changes to trigger a cache refresh.
A Lightweight, Self-adjusting, Baseline-less Data Monitor
Can data alert us that something is going on, without baselines and thresholds?
The Blame Game
Equifax is blaming a single IT person for their data breach. Steve Jones worries this is a sign of things to come.
Statistics in SQL: Student’s t-test
Many undergraduates have misunderstood the name 'Students' in the t-test to imply that it was designed as a simple test suitable for students. In fact it was William Sealy Gosset, an Englishman publishing under the pseudonym Student, who developed the t-test and t distribution in 1908, as a way of making confident predictions from small sample sizes of normally-distributed variables. As Gosset's employer was Guinness, the brewer, Phil Factor takes a sober view of calculating it in SQL.
Stairway to SQL Server Agent - Level 2: Job Steps and Subsystems
SQL Server Agent jobs are made up of a series of one or more Job Steps. A job step is assigned to a specific job subsystem, which identifies the kind of work the job step is going to perform. Each job step runs in a separate security context, although each job also has an owner that determines who can modify the job.
Blogs
Car Update September 2026
By Steve Jones
Software is hard. While I love our Lucid Gravity, I realize that they are...
Microsoft Tools for Making Data AI-Ready
By James Serra
Making Data AI-Ready, Part 2 (This is the second article in a three-part series...
Local Models Using GPUs with Ollama
By Steve Jones
Can you use your GPUs when running a local model under Ollama? You can,...
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