Towards a Single Management Stack

Phil Factor argues that with both SQL Server and PowerShell now running on Linux, the latter becomes increasingly important in achieving the goal of a single management stack for databases across all hosting environments.

The Exploratory Testing Chrome Plugin

If all your application testing is done by test experts, who know how to record images, do screen-capture, write issue-reports to TFS more appropriate and consistent format and so on, you probably don't need the 'Exploratory Testing' chrome plug-in. Otherwise, it is worth checking out Ambily KK's walkthrough.

Comprehensive Baseline Collector Solution (Updated)

There are no more excuses for not having baseline data. This article introduces a comprehensive Free Baseline Collector Solution

The Copy Cat Poll

This poll asks about copies, specifically those of your databases. How many do you keep around? How much extra storage does this cost? Steve Jones thinks that most organizations have quite a few copies, which can use a lot of resources.

Master Data Management (MDM) Using SQL Server

So many of the problems that organisations have with their IT applications are due to the struggle with data, in the absence of overall organization-wide control and supervision of data and its progress through the various parts of the organization. Master data management (MDM) offers a solution to the many data woes by controlling data change, It does it in an analogous way to Version Control, so that changes are cleansed, checked, tracked and audited, and any named version can be published to other services. Now Microsoft has an implementation as part of the data platform.

Get-SqlLogin and Remove-SqlLogin Are Here

Learn how to use the login commands included with SSMS2016 from PowerShell.

Time Off

Finding a balance between work and life away from work is hard, but one good way is with periodic vacations. Today Steve Jones notes that some people don't take their vacation, which he sees as a problem.

New Drop If Exists Syntax in SQL Server 2016

When writing T-SQL code, we often write code to check if the database object exists first and then take some action. In this tip John Miner covers the new and easier way to do this in SQL Server 2016.

Byte Me: Data Wrangler

Temporal Data Part 3 – Reporting Out Current and Historical Information

With the introduction of temporal table support in SQL Server 2016 Microsoft also added some additional functionality that makes it easy for you to join the current and history records of a system-versioned table. Greg Larsen shows you some of the different ways to do analysis of your system-versioned records over time.