Backup Responsibility
Backups are important in most companies and today Steve Jones asks who has the responsibility in yours.
How to Receive Alerts When You Centralize Your SQL Server Event Logs
Learn how you can get alerts when you centralize the Event log. This is part 2 of the previous article "How to centralize your SQL Server Event Logs."
No Handwaving Away the DBA
Steve Jones doesn't think that companies can just do away with a DBA. Apparently there are people on the NoSQL platform that agree.
Improve SSIS data flow buffer performance
In this tip we have a very simple data flow using a source query with a predictable duration. The data flow takes longer to process all the rows and even larger buffers didn't make the problem go away. What can be the cause of this and how do we solve this? Koen Verbeeck explains.
Managers
Steve Jones thinks that the attitudes of managers need to change if we want to be more productive in the future.
12 SQL Server XML Questions You Were Too Shy To Ask
Robert Sheldon answers 12 questions about XML, including situations you would want to use XML, and how to do basic tasks.
Context Is Everything - Check Your Settings
Check 96 server and database settings to make sure they match your expectations in your databases with this script.
Vocation or Career
Do you have a vocation or career? Steve Jones talks a bit about the difference today.
How column COLLATION can affect SQL Server query performance
Most DBAs, myself included, install SQL Server with the default server collation SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS and all of our table columns get created using this default setting. This tip will look at the performance impacts of querying data with this setting as it compares to querying columns with the collation set to SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS.
SQL Saturday #306: Redmond
On May 31, 2014 SQL Saturday is coming to Redmond, Washington. Come for a free day of SQL Server training and networking, the schedule currently features tracks on T-SQL, SSIS, Backup & Recovery and more. Register while space is available.
Blogs
Monday Monitor Tips: Intelligent Alert Thresholds
By Steve Jones
At the recent Redgate Summit in Chicago, I demo’d (lightly) the ML based Alert...
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
Forums
String_agg not working as needed
I'm trying to get this string_agg to put all the 'comments' into one result...
Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Odd Sequences
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Odd Sequences
Question of the Day
Odd Sequences
What values are returned from this code?
CREATE SEQUENCE NumericSequence
AS NUMERIC(5,1)
START WITH 1.0
INCREMENT BY 0.1;
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO See possible answers