Secure Programming
Writing secure programs is hard. Steve Jones has a few comments on what some of the issues are with training developers.
Get CPU and Cores for SQL Server 2012 Licensing
With SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a new licensing model; licensing per core replaced the licensing per processor. We need to adjust budget to reflect licensing changes for our next Enterprise Agreement renewal, but we do not have processor core information from any of our server inventory tools. This tip explains how to quickly gather information about each server's processor cores without logging in to each server.
SQL in the City Charlotte 2013
Join Red Gate on the day before PASS Summit for a full-day of free training from SQL Server MVPs and top presenters. Get $200 off your PASS conference ticket when you register for SQL in the City Charlotte, which takes place on Monday October 14.
Confessions of an IT Manager, 2nd Edition - Book
The software industry is, just occasionally, more absurd than one would dare to imagine. Having spent most of his working life in its clutches, Phil Factor has pretty much "seen it all" and what's more he's prepared to tell what he knows. The second edition of Phil's "Confessions of an IT Manager" contains Phil's full repertoire of tales of institutional mayhem and software projects gone awry.
Data Mining Introduction Part 7: Microsoft Association
This article is part of the Data Mining introduction series. This article is about the Microsoft Association algorithm.
Data Mining Introduction Part 7: Microsoft Association
This article is part of the Data Mining introduction series. This article is about the Microsoft Association algorithm.
The Need for Tape
Are tape systems obsolete? A recent incident has Steve Jones thinking perhaps not.
Database Backup and Recovery in the Age of Big Data
Big data is the latest craze. Hardware and software vendors have overwhelmed IT departments with high-speed analytical software, proprietary high-performance hardware, and columnar-based data stores promising quick access and lightning-fast answers to ad hoc analytical queries. Forgotten in this blast of technology are the database administrators' most important responsibilities: backup and recovery.
SQL in the City Atlanta 2013
SQL in the City is coming to Atlanta on October 11. The second stop on the SQL in the City US Tour brings you SQL Server MVP experts including, Steve Jones and Grant Fritchey. Learn top tips and best practices for SQL Server database development and administration, discover the latest Red Gate tools, and network with fellow data professionals.
SQL Monitor Performance Metric: SQL Server: Plan Cache: Cache Pages Total
This metric collects the total amount of memory, in kilobytes, used by the plan cache of an instance to help identify memory pressure or plan cache pollution. It is similar to the SQL Server: memory manager: SQL cache memory counter, but instead of providing the number of 8-kilobyte pages that make up the plan cache, it provides the total memory used.
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers