Patching Problems
Problems with SQL Server after applying the Windows 8.1 update have Steve Jones concerned about software updates.
Introduction to the SQL Server Analysis Services Neural Network Data Mining Algorithm
In data mining and machine learning circles, the neural network is one of the most difficult algorithms to explain. Fortunately, SQL Server Analysis Services allows for a simple implementation of the algorithm for data analytics. Dallas Snider explains
Failure
This week Steve Jones has a poll to make you think based on Tim O'Reilly's look back at how he succeeded and failed with his company.
RAID and Its Impact on your SQL Performance
This article attempts to explain RAID's impact on SQL performance.
Microsoft Azure Diagnostics Part 1: Introduction
Having a well thought-out plan for diagnostic data is important for on-premises applications, but it is arguably more important for distributed, highly scalable cloud applications. Michael Collier has provided a clear introduction to Microsoft Azure Diagnostics, including the Diagnostics Agent and how to extract the data.
SQL Scripts in SSMS
A new plug in for Management Studio from Red Gate is free. It will give you access to all the scripts at SQLServerCentral, including your own briefcase.
Using Encrypted Backups in SQL Server 2014
This article details encrypted backups and how they are implemented in SQL Server 2014.
Why Don't We Have Better Practices?
It seems as though the quality of much software isn't very good. What is that? Couldn't we do better? Certainly some people write much better code. Why can't the rest of us imitate them?
Validate File Properties with PowerShell Prior to Import into SQL Server
We recently faced an issue where an internal data provider began providing an incomplete or inaccurate files because it lacked the proper length (or didn't exceed a certain size). In our case, we implemented a check on the file before importing using PowerShell, here's what we did.
Blogs
A Last Minute Trip to the EU
By Steve Jones
My life has some crazy travel stretches for sure. Between speaking, office visits, customer...
Part 3 of 3: Tuning DiskANN — R, Alpha, L, Beam Width, Recall and Latency
In Part 1, we saw how ‘Vamana’ represents vectors as nodes, connects them with...
Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
Forums
Server-Level Table sizes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Server-Level Table sizes
Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in SQL Server 2025: Fixing the Kitchen-Sink Search Procedure
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...
Question of the Day
ORDER BY alias
There is a table tmp_tab:
CREATE TABLE tmp_tab ( id int, val int );
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES (1, 1), (2, NULL), (3, 3), (4, 4), (5, 5);You want to order the rows ids by the following expression:
ISNULL(val, id) + 1Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct) See possible answers