Using OVER() to Remove Duplicate Rows
Tables used purely for reporting sometimes lack a unique identifier. Find out how to remove duplicates from such a table when data loads go bad.
SQL Server Timeouts During Backups and CHECKDB
So you’re hosting your SQL Server in the cloud, and you’ve noticed that when you’re running a backup or a DBCC CHECKDB, you suffer from extreme performance problems - what's going on? Brent Ozar explains.
I can ODBC clearly now
ODBC is the closest thing we have to a universal standard for data access across platforms, applications and data sources. So why doesn't DocumentDB support it?
TempDB growth due to version store on AlwaysOn secondary server
On a not-so-busy day, I received an alert saying tempdb has grown to 90 percent of the drive size and there is only 10 percent space left on the drive. The server is a SQL Server 2014 instance and hosts AlwaysOn secondary databases.
Power BI for Data Modelling
Power BI has a lot of uses, but one of the most interesting of them is to model and shape data to make it easier for self-service BI. Power BI is a full-stack solution that includes data loading, data modelling, metrics, reporting and distribution. It can take the source data, and perform in-process data modelling relatively easily as well a providing an easy to use and powerful user interface for analytics and reporting.
SSIS Package documentor
Read and document multiple SSIS packages in an Excel file. The document can be used to do further code analysis.
What's Your Backup Speed?
This week Steve Jones has a bit of a competition. Share with him how fast you can back up a 1TB database.
Is JavaScript Single-Threaded?
Developing JavaScript for web pages can be perplexing. You will get errors that seem to make no sense, You will be given nuggets of advice about how and when you can use JavaScript to manipulate the DOM or make Ajax requests. It is far better to understand the reason for these rules; the single-threaded nature of JavaScript, and how it loads the page and manages the event loop. How can you achieve parallel processing and what is the best way? Igor makes it all clear and obvious.
EzAdo Part 3
EzAdo is a very simple api built to exploit some new features of SQL 2016. It combines software, convention, and creativity to get more done in less time.
Set Statistics… Profile?
Erik Darling looks at SET STATISTICS TIME ON and SET STATISTICS IO ON as potential tools for troubleshooting a query.
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