Download tSQLt Today and Start Unit Testing
The latest version of tSQLt is now available with some SQL Prompt snippets to help you get started.
The Security Payoff
An invitation to hack United's IT systems has resulted in vulnerabilities being found and hackers rewarded for disclosing the issues.
SQL Server Archive and Data Retention Considerations
Tim Smith looks at what to take into consideration before building a design to archive old data in SQL Server databases.
Hiring for Culture
Steve Jones discusses the decision to hire someone that fits in with your culture at work, and what that means.
Stairway to SQL Server Security Level 10: Row-Level Security
Unlike some other industrial-strength database servers, SQL Server lacks a built-in mechanism for protecting individual data records, called row-level security. This stairway level explores why you might want to use such a low-level granularity of data access security and how you can implement row-level security.
Demystifying Oracle's Clustering Factor
One of the more confusing statistics in Oracle is one called the clustering factor. Associated with an index, it's actually dependent on the table data, more specifically the distance between 'jumps' for a given index key. Commonly, a 'jump' is the number of blocks between rows containing the given index key starting with the first block found containing that key. If that sounds confusing don't despair, David Fitzjarrell explains in detail.
Visualizing in Space
An amazing visualization of basketball players has Steve Jones encouraging you to find your own pet project and showcase some skills.
The Importance of Maintenance on MSDB
MSDB is a system database used by SQL Server. MSDB stores all sorts of data, such as backup history, log shipping monitor history, SSIS packages and Service Broker queue data to name a few. Just like user databases, MSDB needs regular maintenance, including index optimizations and, more importantly, regular purging. In this article, Tim Radney looks at how neglecting your MSDB can negatively impact on your environment.
Learning Backup to Azure
References and links to get you started in backing up your database to the Azure blob storage.
No Downtime Deployments
Can you deploy your database changes without any downtime? Steve Jones has a few notes.
Blogs
The Book of Redgate: Mistakes
By Steve Jones
This is kind of a funny page to look at. The next page has...
ADF Pipeline Debugging Fails with BadRequest – The Sequel
A while ago I blogged about a use case where a pipeline fails during...
Why I stopped using MCP for AI coding stuff
By HeyMo0sh
Something has shifted quietly in 2026. The developers I know/respect—the ones actually shipping, not...
Forums
Dynamic Unpivot
I have a table I didn't design that has tons of repeating groups in...
Writing as an Art and a Job
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Writing as an Art and...
String Similarity II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item String Similarity II
Question of the Day
String Similarity II
What is the range for the result from the EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY() function in SQL Server 2025?
See possible answers