What's Your Test Plan?
This week Steve Jones looks at the formal way in which you might verify changes to your system. Do you have a process?
Considerations around validation errors 41305 and 41325 on memory optimized tables with foreign keys
Denzil Ribeiro looks at the validation phase of transaction lifetime.
A Comparison of JDBC Drivers for MySQL
A brief comparison of three different JDBC Drivers built for connecting with MySQL
The Complexity of Branches
Branching code creates complexity to development and should be undertaken with caution.
Comparing Networking Options in Azure
What are your options for connecting to an Azure VM? Sure, a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection will get you started but you'll soon need a full secure VPN connection. Azure can provide three different options for doing this: Point-to-Site (P2S), Site-to-Site (S2S), and ExpressRoute, but what are their relative advantages, and which one is right for the way you need to use Azure?
Stairway to Database Source Control Level 5: Working with Others (Distributed Repository)
This level starts with an overview of how versioning works in Git, a DVCS, and suggests a sensible database project versioning strategy. It then offers some simple, but illustrative, practical examples showing how to share database changes and deal gracefully with any conflicting changes.
Differences between Delete and Truncate in SQL Server
Atul Gaikwad details the differences between DELETE and TRUNCATE, including how they vary in terms of being rolled back.
Half Baked Features
Steve Jones notes that some features aren't fully developed, but that's not a reason to avoid releasing them.
Row Level Security with SQL Server 2016: Part 2 - Blocking Updates at the Row Level
In this article, Greg Larson reviews why a block predicate is important when you implement row level security using SQL Server 2016.
Blogs
Who Are You Doing It For?
By Brian Kelley
But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers