Your Frame of Reference
How you examine and approach a problem might have a large impact on how you solve it. Steve Jones notes that it's important that all of us look at the problem from the point of view of the customer, as well as our own view.
Exploring In-memory OLTP Engine (Hekaton) in SQL Server 2014 CTP1
The continuing drop in the price of memory has made fast in-memory OLTP increasingly viable. SQL Server 2014 allows you to migrate the most-used tables in an existing database to memory-optimized 'Hekaton' technology, but how you balance between disk tables and in-memory tables for optimum performance requires judgement and experiment.
New SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Untrusted Check Constraints
This metric returns the number of check constraints that have their is_not_trusted flag set to 1 in the sys.check_constraints table. Untrusted constraints force SQL Server to construct less efficient query plans, because it doesn’t know enough about the kind of data contained in the table. This can point to a data integrity issue which should be investigated.
A Better Conference
Is there a better way to put together a conference or event? Today Steve Jones speculates on how events are run and how we might change things.
SQL Server Trace Flags
A comprehensive list of trace flags for SQL Server that you can use to configure your server instance.
SQL Server 2012 Integration Services - Leveraging PowerShell in Package Deployment Model
SQL Server 2012 Integration Services introduces an innovative approach to deploying SSIS projects, known as Project Deployment Model. However, the traditional, package-based methodology remains available and supported, and, in some scenarios, it might be considered more viable, since it allows for separation of SQL Server Database Engine and SQL Server Integration Services.
Why SQL Server 2012 needs Windows Server 2012
While AlwaysOn and Columnar lookup are good enough reasons to migrate to SQL Server 2012, you need to be aware of the problems associated with certain virtualize environments.
Don Knuth and the Art of Computer Programming: The Interview
Fifty years after starting the 'Art of Computer Programming', Don Knuth is still working hard at the project. It is considered amongst the "hundred or so books that shaped a century of science”. Richard Morris asks him how things are going, and to find out more about his many achievements.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
Is Fabric a Reliable Service or a Ripped Resource?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Fabric a Reliable Service...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers