The Microsoft SQL Year in Review
Microsoft gives a year in review from the SQL Server and Azure SQL teams. Steve sees a lot of accomplishments from this past year.
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The || Operator
I have been working in various computer languages for a long time. When I saw that the || operator was coming, I was a bit confused as to why we needed this, and how it would work. After all, this is a part of other languages. I decided to dig in a bit. This is […]
Your Value from a Conference
Today Steve asks what value you get from attending conferences or other events.
SQL Server 2025 Product() Function Examples
SQL Server 2025 includes new features and enhancements. In the previous SQL Server 2025 tips, we have explored many new features. Have you explored the new Product() function? If not, this will walk you through the Product() function with several examples.
Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale Level 6: Backup and Restore Internals
Learn how backup and restore work in Azure SQL Hyperscale in this next level in the stairway series.
The Challenge of AI
Steve sees a lot of challenges ahead for AI, especially in the area of labor and employment.
15 Practical Tips for Securing SQL Server
Securing SQL Server isn’t complicated, but it does require consistent attention to the areas where real risks arise, such as privileges, configuration, encryption, patching, and monitoring. This article outlines 15 practical, high-impact steps you can take to harden your SQL Server environment.
Growing Artificial Intelligence
This week Steve Jones discusses artificial intelligence and one of the building blocks that will be needed: data.
Think LSNs Are Unique? Think Again - Preventing Data Loss in CDC ETL
When using only an LSN to track which changes you have processed, you can lose data. This article shows how to avoid this problem.
Query Exercise Answer: Generating Big TempDB Spills
In last week’s Query Exercise, I challenged you to play some code golf to generate big spills with tiny T-SQL.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Ranch Rules
By Steve Jones
Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it. – from Excellent...
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
By SQLPals
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes ...
Three Ways to Use Snowflake Data in Microsoft Fabric
By James Serra
Organizations increasingly want Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric to coexist without duplicating data or fragmenting...
Forums
You Have Homework
Comments posted to this topic are about the item You Have Homework
SSIS 2019 or 2022 - Microsoft Connector for Oracle
Hello all, I am having one heck of a time installing Microsoft Connector for...
bringing a .bak across the wire without rdp'ing or mapping into the sql server
hi, a peer of mine would like to be self sufficient in bringing small...
Question of the Day
The Query Optimizer and Page Density
If I have a fillfactor set to 70%, this reduces my page density to roughly 70%. Does this affect the query plans that the optimizer chooses?
See possible answers