Network Configuration of SQL Server Always On Availability Groups in Azure
Implementing SQL Server Failover Clustering in Azure virtual machines differs in several aspects from its on-premises implementations. These differences reflect some of the unique characteristics of the storage and network infrastructure services in the Microsoft cloud environment. In this article, Marcin Policht looks at the networking aspects of clustered deployments of SQL Server 2016 in Azure.
Citizen Scientists
More and more people are becoming citizen scientists, even in companies. Steve Jones thinks this is helpful, but we still need professionals.
Automated Database Provisioning for Development and Testing
If your development team needs to work on anonymised copies of the current production database, and if changes are being delivered rapidly as well, that could mean a lot of time and routine DevOps work copying databases. SQL Clone was designed for tasks like this. Grant Fritchey investigates whether you save time, effort and scripting over the more traditional approach, and at what point it makes sense to use it.
The Achilles Heel
In a long career in IT, Phil Factor cannot recall a 'major incident', where the failure or breach was due to a single 'Achilles Heel', or even a single team of people. They are always due to a whole plethora of slack and ignorant practices.
Indexing for Windowing Functions: WHERE vs. OVER
Erik Darling shows that if you take SQL Server's word when it asks for an index, things can go horribly awry.
8 Ways to Export SQL Results To a Text File
This tip will show eight ways to export the results of a query to a text file.
Why Don't You Unit Test Code?
This Friday Steve Jones wants to know what you think of testing code and why you don't do it.
SQL Server Integration Services SSIS 2016 Tutorial
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is the integration and ETL (extract – transform – load) tool in the Microsoft Data Platform stack. SSIS is typically used in data warehousing scenarios, but can also be used in common data integration use cases or just to move data around. SSIS is used behind the scenes in the Maintenance Plans of SQL Server and in the Import/Export wizard.
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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