Interviews: What is ACID?
While thinking about interviews, Steve Jones shares a story of a job situation he encountered.
Stairway to U-SQL Level 17: Executing U-SQL Jobs with PowerShell
Automate your Data Lake with PowerShell! Learn how PowerShell can be used to execute U-SQL scripts, as well as a few other little tricks.
Investigating the Cause of SQL Server High CPU Load Conditions When They Happen
Any DBA who is trying to find the cause of an intermittent problem with a server or database dreams of being able to use a query or procedure take a snap of the relevant variables at the point when the problem occurred. Laerte takes an example of a slow-running query hogging resources to show that you can run queries when a WMI alert is fired, and save the results for later inspection, whenever it happens.
Searching and finding a string value in all columns in a SQL Server table
Sometimes there is a need to find if a string value exists in any column in your table. Although there are system stored procedures that do a "for each database" or a "for each table", there is not a system stored procedure that does a "for each column".
Avoiding the Hell of having to Remember DDL syntax
What's your favorite productivity tool when writing SQL? Phil Factor has has flirted with most of them, from templates and snippets to a programmer's clipboard and back again.
The Instance ID MSSQLSERVER Is Already In Use
This article will explain how to fix "The Instance ID 'MSSQLSERVER' Is Already In Use By SQL Server Instance 'MSSQLSERVER.INACTIVE'
Error.
How to Drop All Your Indexes – Fast
You probably shouldn't be doing this, but if you need to, Brent Ozar has a script for that.
A Pattern for Email Address storage and retrieval
Email addresses are very prevalent in IT systems and often used as a natural primary key. The repetitive storage of email addresses in multiple tables is a bad design choice. Following is a design pattern to store email addresses in a single table and to retrieve them efficiently.
Blogs
Moving On-Prem PostgreSQL to the Cloud: Picking the Right Path for Big Tables
Every PostgreSQL migration eventually hits the same fork in the road. The database is...
A Spread of Vacation
By Steve Jones
I’m off on vacation today. Which is a little weird as I just got...
How AgentDBA Identifies Backup Failures
By Arun Sirpal
Every DBA has a box like this. Sitting untouched for months. Nobody’s proud of...
Forums
Have you done a Mid year check in?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Have you done a Mid...
From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline
Comments posted to this topic are about the item From SQL Server On-Premises to...
Independence Day 2026
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026
Question of the Day
Independence Day 2026
In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.
See possible answers