The Mysterious Case of the Missing Default Value
Sometimes things are not exactly how we think they are. Read the story of the missing default value and learn why.
Encrypting SQL Server: Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) encrypts the data within the physical files of the database, the 'data at rest'. Without the original encryption certificate and master key, the data cannot be read when the drive is accessed or the physical media is stolen. The data in unencrypted data files can be read by restoring the files to another server. TDE requires planning but can be implemented without changing the database. Robert Sheldon explains how to implement TDE.
Comparing Space Usage for Different Compression Types
This is an investigation, to get an impression on the impact of the used disk space before and after compression considering different index types.
Getting Started with Azure SQL Data Warehouse - Part 2
Arshad Ali discusses the architecture of Azure SQL Data Warehouse and how you can scale up or down, based on your need.
Continuous Delivery and the Development DBA
How to do database development with trunk based development and Continuous Delivery
Follow-up #1 on leading wildcard seeks
Aaron Bertrand shows how to implement simple triggers that maintain trigram-type tables used for better supporting wildcard searches.
Core Database Source Control Concepts
Sometimes, it isn't the technicalities or details of database source control that people find difficult, but the general concepts and workflow. In this article, taken from Robert Sheldon's book 'SQL Server Source Control Basics' , he takes a step back from the details to explain the whole purpose of database source control and the most important operations within source control such as versioning, branching and merging.
Backups in Azure SQL Data Warehouse
This time we explain how to recover an Azure SQL Data Warehouse (ASDW) from a disaster.
Visualizing Data
This week Steve Jones talks about data visualizations, and the opportunities that exist for data professionals.
Blogs
Rethinking Index Maintenance: Why avg_fragmentation_in_percent Is Outdated and What You Should Do Instead
By Tim Radney
As a SQL Server DBA with years of experience tuning production environments, I’ve seen...
Microsoft Build 2026 announcements
By James Serra
Once again there were a number of Microsoft Build announcements related to data and...
T-SQL Tuesday #199: Roundup
A good week ago I hosted the monthly T-SQL Tuesday blog party. I invited...
Forums
Changes, Happiness, and a Few Tears
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changes, Happiness, and a Few...
BCP on Linux
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BCP on Linux
You Probably Don't Need a Vector Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item You Probably Don't Need a...
Question of the Day
BCP on Linux
When running bcp on Linux, what is the field terminator?
See possible answers