Why Primary Keys can be important on large tables
I inherited a database that was getting large and not performing well. After adding primary keys life got better.
Developer Week - Nuremberg, Germany
It's Developer Week in Nuremberg July 14-17. There are a couple of great speakers at this event, like Constantin Small and Sascha Dittmann. Register while space is available
Experiments with NEO4J: Using a graph database as a SQL Server metadata hub
NEO4J, the graph database, can be used to provide answers that are very tricky for relational databases, including providing diagrams to show how SQL tables relate to each other, and the shortest chain of relationships between two tables, as David Poole demonstrates
Lockdown or Let Them Free
Do we take security too far? Are we creating unnecessary rules for those that need to use the resources we support? Steve Jones talks today about security and how we might want to approach it when handling rights for developers.
The SSIS Data Pump - Level 2 of the Stairway to Integration Services
Learn the basics of data flow in SSIS with the data pump in this second installment of our series designed to teach you about Integration Services.
Running SQL Server Databases in the Amazon Cloud (Part 1)
In this tip, Sadequl Hussain outlines what's involved in rolling out a SQL Server instance in RDS. In subsequent tips, he will explore what features it offers and what shortcomings it has.
Less and Less Visual
Phil Factor ponders the preponderance of text in current database tools, and asks what happened to our glorious graphical future?
Continuous Delivery and the Database
Continuous Delivery is fairly generally understood to be an effective way of tackling the problems of software delivery and deployment by making build, integration and delivery into a routine. Phil Factor explains why he's an enthusiast for databases being full participants in this story, and suggests practical ways of doing so.
Stairway to T-SQL: Beyond The Basics Level 7: Controlling the Flow of Your T-SQL
When you are writing TSQL code there are times when you want to perform the same logic over and over again. To accomplish this you can used the WHILE keyword. There are other times when you want to perform a conditional test and depending on the results of the test you execute one code block for the TRUE condition and possibly a different code block when the condition is FALSE. When you need to conditionally execute code based on the outcome of a condition you can used the IF keyword. In this Stairway level I will be discussing how to use the WHILE and IF constructs to control the flow of your TSQL code.
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
Searching for my own posts
I have a really stupid question... Is there an easy way to search for...
How to Work with On-Premises AI Models to Generate T-SQL Code
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Work with On-Premises...
Escaping Strings
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Escaping Strings
Question of the Day
Escaping Strings
The STRING_ESCAPE() function requires 2 parameters in SQL Server 2025. The first is a string of text and the second is the type of escape rules being used. What are the options for the second parameter?
See possible answers