Slowly Changing Facts
This article describes a design pattern for storing “effective dated" changes to fact tables.
How to hot-add a vCPU to a virtual SQL Server
One of the benefits of running SQL on virtual environment is the capability to present additional vCPUs to the virtual server online and real-time without interruption to running processes. Our VM administrator normally presents only 1 vCPU on the virtual server and extends as required. This article describes how SQL Server is able to detect hot-added vCPUs in my virtual server.
SQL Server 2014 CTP 2 is available
Download the latest preview of the the next SQL Server version for testing.
Open Arms
Steve Jones looks back at a networking event this week in Charlotte. Networking is valuable to your career and it can be a tremendous amount of fun as well.
Reporting Services Disaster Recovery
Dave Lumley presents a Reporting services disaster recovery solution for SQL Server Standard Edition, using 2 servers. Worth the read if you don't run Enterprise.
Replicating A Volume Of Large Data via Transactional Replication
During weekend maintenance, members of the support team executed an UPDATE statement against the database on the OLTP Server. This database was a part of Transactional Replication, and once the UPDATE statement was executed the Replication procedure came to a halt with an error message. Satnam Singh decided to work on this case and try to find an efficient solution to rebuild the procedure without significant downtime.
Four Years Later
Are we thinking cloud first for database servers? Steve Jones reflects on predictions made four years ago and thinks about how the world has changed for the cloud.
Error during installation of an SQL server Failover Cluster Instance
A common issue I've run into while helping with SQL Server Failover Cluster (FCI) installations is the failure of the Network Name. In the following post I'll discuss a bit of background, the common root cause, and how to resolve it.
The Cloud of Destiny
Is SQL Server going to move to the "cloud?" Steve Jones thinks it is and has a few thoughts as he starts off with "cloud week" here at SQLServerCentral.
SQL Monitor Performance Metric: Buffer Cache Used Per Database in MB
Data pages read from disk are placed in the buffer pool with the intention that they will be reused, and accessing them from RAM is faster than from disk. Knowing how much of your RAM is committed to each database can help you provision the right amount of RAM to SQL Server, and also to identify rogue queries that draw too much data into RAM and force data from other databases out of the cache.
Blogs
PlanTrace Now Supports PostgreSQL
PlanTrace Now Supports PostgreSQL The same plan analysis you know from...
A New Word: the Kinder Surprise
By Steve Jones
the kinder surprise – . the point in your early adolescence when you realize...
Crash-Consistent Snapshot Cloning - Hyper-V Edition
If you’ve been following my T-SQL Snapshot Backup series, most of what I’ve covered...
Forums
SSRS Is Dead. Here Are Your Real Options
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The Distance Metric
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Distance Metric
The New Wave of Security Threats
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The New Wave of Security...
Question of the Day
The Distance Metric
In the new VECTOR_DISTANCE() function in SQL Server 2025, the first parameter is the distance_metric. What is this?
See possible answers