Divide and Conquer - Performance Tuning
Sometimes we need to break down a complex problem into a multiple stage solution to achieve optimal performance
Lobbying for Change
The Connect system from Microsoft doesn't work that well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to press Microsoft for change.
14 SQL Server Indexing Questions You Were Too Shy To Ask
The first thing you need to understand about SQL Server is indexes, but somehow many of the basic questions don't often get asked or answered much on forums. Rob Sheldon answers some of these questions about SQL Server Indexes and indexing.
SQL Saturday #289 - Orange County, CA
SQL Saturday is coming to Huntington Beach, CA on April 26 2014. This is a free day of training and networking for SQL Server Professionals - there are also 2 paid-for precons on April 25 presented by Jason Horner and Bradley Bell. Register for SQL Saturday Orange County while space is available.
Short Stroking and Performance
Disk performance can make a difference to your SQL Server instance. Steve Jones discusses a few things this week.
Load Testing in a Big Data Environment
Load tests give the database administrator quite a lot of valuable information and may make the difference between poor and acceptable application performance. But are there any gotchas or traps associated with big data?
Getting Started in SQL Server
Preparing for your first (or next) interview or job in SQL Server. A good introduction from Craig Farrell.
Team Reputation
The way that various departments might view a team of technology employees can affect how we interact. Andy Warren remembers a few situations and notes it's always more fun to join a team with a good reputation.
High Performance Relational Division in SQL Server
Relational division is used in SQL to select rows that conform to a number of different criteria. Dwain Camps explains how to use it, and shows the performance gains.
SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Server principals with default database offline
This metric monitors whether a server principal’s default database is offline. When you create a SQL Server server principal (formerly referred to as a server login) it has a default database setting that is used to assist in a connection request when no database is specified.
Blogs
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
Forums
Learning From Breakage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Learning From Breakage
Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Python in Action to Auto-Generate...
Adding and Dropping Columns I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns I
Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns I
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use? See possible answers