To keep up to date with all the technologies in SQL Server, the DBA or developer who wants to stay ahead is faced with the struggle of constant learning. How do you keep up while avoiding information overload, unnecessary detours and dead-ends?
The SQL Server Stairways is our solution to this problem. Designed to smooth out even the steepest learning curve, each Stairway is a SQL tutorial series focused on a single topic and is arranged into no more than a dozen easily-navigable tutorials that we call 'steps'. Each step is the length of a typical magazine tutorial, and emphasizes practical, hands-on learning, with just enough background theory to help you understand the topic at a deeper level.
Using straightforward language and avoiding jargon and marketing babble, each Stairway tutorial series is designed to take you from zero knowledge of a particular SQL Server topic to a level of practical understanding that will allow you to start using that feature in a production environment. The learning gradient is steady and manageable, but also brisk. You won't be wasting time.
Happy climbing!
This stairway addresses many of the issues that come about with ad hoc database deployment processes in many organizations. You will learn how to better architect and structure your processes to ensure a reliable database deployment for your applications.
2026-06-11 (first published: 2026-04-15)
303 reads
Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) can be used in formulas or expressions to calculate and return information from data already in our Power BI models. This Stairway series serves as a progressive introduction to DAX within the context of Power BI, examining the functions, operators and values involved, and examining their operation in practice examples. As a part of introducing DAX functions and overall capabilities, the Levels of the series will also offer a wealth of practical exposure to Power BI features as a part of putting DAX to work in our data models and visualizations.
2026-04-15 (first published: 2011-08-09)
19,961 reads
This series looks at the Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature in SQL Server 2008+.
2026-04-15 (first published: 2016-11-23)
3,627 reads
Azure SQL Hyperscale is a scale of the Azure SQL Database intended to scale to very large levels, up to 100TB for a database. This option sits next to the General Purpose and Business Critical tiers. It is described in the What is Hyperscale? document from Microsoft. This series is intended to teach you about […]
2025-08-25 (first published: 2025-08-22)
278 reads
Snowflake is a cloud data warehouse platform that runs on AWS, Azure, and Google Compute Platform. This series looks at the structure and setup of a Snowflake data warehouse.
2025-06-13 (first published: 2021-05-19)
4,191 reads
This stairway series is designed to teach you about the Azure Synapse Analytics cloud service.
2025-06-06 (first published: 2024-06-19)
695 reads
Containers are a lightweight way of building applications that run on a host. Similar to virtualization, the container is a virtual OS rather than a full machine. This stairway will walk you through the basis of containers using Docker for Windows and SQL Server inside of a container.
2024-07-28 (first published: 2019-07-06)
8,175 reads
AlwaysOn is a complex set of technologies that is often mis-understood. In this Stairway you will learn about the AlwaysOn technologies, how they fit into the High Availability stack, and how to make good use of them.
2024-07-23 (first published: 2014-06-25)
19,343 reads
This stairway series tries to help the reader become comfortable with server management objects (SMO). These objects are a programmatic way of accessing SQL Server functions and objects through an API from .NET. This series will help you learn the basics with practical applications for your work.
2024-01-20 (first published: 2023-11-30)
1,476 reads
2023-10-16 (first published: 2023-09-13)
1,490 reads
By Steve Jones
I recently started playing with the MCP Server for SQL Server, which is a...
If you spend your days tuning queries, managing pipelines, or keeping a production database...
I’ve been rebuilding my three-site SQL Server demo lab, and I ran into something...
Putting this here as we're currently on SQL Server 2019 installed on Windows Server...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Never is Not the Policy
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Automating SSAS Multidimensional Security Audits...
I have added a few indexes to one of my tables in SQL Server 2025:
ALTER TABLE dbo.CustomerContact
ADD CONSTRAINT PK_CustomerContact
PRIMARY KEY (CustomerID);
-- Create index on CustomerEmail
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerEmail
ON dbo.CustomerContact (CustomerEmail);
CREATE INDEX IX_CustomerContact_CustomerEmail
ON dbo.CustomerContact (phone);
I then do this to disable one index:
alter index IX_CustomerContact_CustomerPhone on dbo.CustomerContact disableI see this when I check the index status:
I decide to rebuild all indexes with this command:
ALTER INDEX ALL ON dbo.CustomerContactAfter I do this, what will I see for the index status? See possible answers