Exploring Recursive CTEs by Example
Recursive CTEs can be confusing and scary, so examining some non-standard examples may cast light upon these shadowy demons.
Summer, Summer, Summertime
This Friday Steve Jones has a poll about your summertime activities. What have you done away from work that was memorable?
SQL Monitor Custom Metric: WriteLog Wait Time
During a transaction, data is written to the log cache so that it’s ready to be written to the log file on commit, or can be rolled back if necessary. When the log cache is being flushed to disk, the SQL Server session will wait on the WriteLog wait type. If this happens all the time, it may suggest disk bottlenecks where the transaction log is stored.
Why Put Your Database into Source Control?
Checking program code into source control is a daily ritual for most developers, but versioning database code is less well-understood. Grant Fritchey argues that getting your databases under source control is not only vital for the stability of development and deployment, but it will make your life easier when something does go wrong.
Columnstore Index Changes in SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2012 introduced columnstore indexes, which can immensely improve the performance of OLAP queries. How were they updated and improved in SQL Server 2014?
Restoring the SQL Server Master Database Even Without a Backup
Many DBAs back up their user databases, but not their system databases. Whatever the reason for the lack of a backup, John Grover explains how to save yourself (mostly) should you ever find yourself with no viable master database and no good backup.
SQL in the City Workshop - Continuous Integration Stairway
Red Gate’s running a half-day training workshop at their UK head office in Cambridge on Aug 8. It’ll show you how to link your database source control repository to your build system as the starting point for continuous integration.
Calculating and Verifying Check Digits in T-SQL
A lot of numbers that we use everyday such as Bank Card numbers, Identification numbers, and ISBN codes, have check digits. As part of the routine data cleansing of such codes we must check that the code is valid- but do we? Dwain Camps shows how it can be done in SQL in such a way that it could even be used in a constraint, and keep bad data out of the database.
Blogs
ISACA AI Material/Exam Prep Discount (May 18 – June 30, 2026)
By Brian Kelley
If you are considering any of the ISACA AI certs like the Advanced Artificial...
A Fabric solution can be very cost effective
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Are you currently using Microsoft Fabric or considering migrating to it? If so, there...
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log
By SQLPals
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log If you...
Forums
Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines That Don't Break at Scale
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines...
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
SQL Server Showing Out of Space But Plenty of Drive Space
We have a SQL Server installed. We have a 500GB drive for the database....
Question of the Day
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
In the Database Engine, when a deadlock is detected, what does the detection interval shrink to (in time)?
See possible answers