Generating Our Own Bad Data
We depend on data quality to run our businesses efficiently. However, it's a problem when we mess that data up on purpose.
List and Execute SQL Server Stored Procedures with PowerShell
Stored procedures allow the DBA to automate a certain task by bundling up a query and executing as a single set of logic. This is considerable progress in including more automation, but why not automate the automation? Adam Bertram explains how.
Deploy Security Changes with Copy-SqlLogin
Moving security changes between server instances can be a cumbersome process, but it doesn't need to be with the PowerShell cmdlet, Copy-SqlLogin.
Azure SQL Data Warehouse: Explaining the Architecture Through System Views
The architecture of Azure SQL Data Warehouse isn't easy to explain briefly, but if you have some useful queries that access the management and catalog views, and diagrams that show how they relate together, you can very quickly get a feel for what is going on under the hood. By using and extending these queries that use these views, you can check on a variety waits, blocking, status, table distribution and data movement in ASDW.
Analysis Services Lives On
The release of Analysis Services in Azure means the platform has a future.
Reading Backup History Information for a Database
There are times when you might want to read backup/restore history information to identify a backup’s start and finish date/time, the location where the backup was written, the size of the database backup, etc. Greg Larsen shows you how to do this in SQL Server.
Emotions and Decision Making
Today we have a guest editorial from Grant Fritchey that looks at emotions and how they can affect our decision making.
Learning SQL Server 2016
Here is a reference that lets you take a quick look at the new features in SQL Server 2016 and dig into the various items with a collection of links we'll maintain.
Visualize the timeline of your SQL jobs using Google graph and email
Generate an HTML page with the timeline of your SQL jobs using Google graph and sp_send_dbmail
Blogs
Learn Better: Pause to Review More
By Brian Kelley
If you want to learn better, pause more in your learning to intentionally review.
Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-Gen: Bring on the IOPS
By John
If you’ve used Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose, you know the drill: to...
SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data
By DataOnWheels
Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...
Forums
Two foreign keys to the same table. Can't cascade deletes.
Not sure if this is really a relational theory question but it seems about...
Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working
Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...
High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?
Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...
Question of the Day
Encoding URLs
I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table:
CREATE TABLE Response ( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY , ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000) ) GOIf I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use? See possible answers