Poor Database Design Realities
Steve sees that poor database design is the reality of the world and we have to work around that.
Snake draft sorting in SQL Server, part 3
In part 2 of this series, I showed an example implementation of distributing a long-running workload in parallel, in order to finish faster. In reality, though, this involves more than just restoring databases. And I have significant skew to deal with: one database that is many times larger than all the rest and has a higher growth rate.
Basic Always On Availability Groups in SQL Server Standard
Once Windows Server Failover Clusters have been set up, we can set up Availability Groups in SQL Server. This article will focus on setting up Basic Always-On Availability Groups in SQL Server Standard Edition.
This facilitates High Availability in SQL Server Standard, with three levels of availability and failover:
Asynchronous commit with manual or forced failover,
Synchronous commit with manual or forced failover,
Synchronous commit with automatic failover.
PowerBI premium capacity administration: dataset monitoring and tuning
Over the years Power BI has evolved into a complex and varied ecosystem of tools and solutions, which in its turn demands several supporting roles: there are, of course, developers, data engineers and data scientists, but there is need for one more, i.e. a capacity administrator.
Using AI for the First Draft
What is an AI LLM useful for? Steve thinks a first draft is not a bad way to look at your AI results.
WITspiration - Year 2
A new cohort of WITspiration is strating, the women in technology mentoring circle.
Bridging Snowflake and Azure Data Stack: A Step-by-Step Guide
This article shows how to access Snowflake information from Synapse Analytics.
DBCC CLONEDATABASE is Semi-Discontinued
Microsoft is no longer supporting some uses for DBCC CLONEDATABASE. Read a few of Steve's thoughts on the change.
Who’s Changing the Table? Answers and Discussion
Your challenge for this week was to find out who keeps mangling the contents of the AboutMe column in the Stack Overflow database.
On Being an "Expert"
I had the opportunity last week to present a session at DataSaturdays Stockholm. I can't say enough nice things about the event and the organizers. I presented on Query Store in SQL Server. In my mind, it's an entry-level to middle tier presentation. Most of the room was already working with Query Store, some quite […]
Blogs
Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Forums
Database file shrink issue.
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers