New CREATE OR ALTER statement in SQL Server 2016 SP1
Ahmad Yaseen explains what SQL Server 2016 SP1's new CREATE OR ALTER statement does, and how to use it.
Using EXCEPT to Determine Row Differences
How to use the EXCEPT statement to perform row differences.
Introduction to SAP HANA on Azure
Microsoft and SAP share a long history of working together on a variety of interoperability solutions, including SAP Fiori and Office 365. In recent years, this trend has been exemplified by advancements in support for SAP-based solutions on Microsoft Azure. Marcin Policht provides an overview, focusing in particular on support for SAP HANA on Azure.
vCenter Server fails to start, Purge and Shrink Vcenter SQL Database
In this article, you will learn how to troubleshoot If your vCenter Server fails to start and and manually purge the Vcenter database if required.
Lists With, or Without, Ranges in both T-SQL and PowerShell
Whether you are working in a procedural language like PowerShell or in T-SQL, there is something slightly bothersome about having to deal with parameters that are lists, or worse with ranges amongst the values. In fact, once you have a way of dealing with them, they can be convenient, especially when bridging the gulf between application and the database. Phil Factor shows how to deal with them.
SQL Server vs SQL Server v.Next
An introduction to the basics of current SQL Server vs v.Next Performance Testing.
What Would You Do if Your Company Was Targeted?
Today we have a guest editorial that asks what you might do if you knew a hacker was coming after your organization.
Compression and its Effects on Performance
Erin Stellato takes a look at the new COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS functions, comparing their impact on space and performance to traditional data compression.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Knots
By Steve Jones
Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand....
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
Forums
Multiple Deployment Processes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes
How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to...
Upgrading Admin Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries
Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
See possible answers