Sometimes query tuning involves taking a different approach to a problem. And given that other tuning options might be creating index(es) or redesigning tables - both of which are much…

Encryption is a funny thing. Since the dawn of communication, whenever people have wanted to keep their secrets secret, they've used some sort of encryption. I'm sure parents started spelling…

This month, Grant Fritchey (@scarydba) asks us to write about Extended Events (XE). He mentions that they were a topic once before (it was in 2015 - more than 8…

Josephine Bush (@hellosqlkitty) asks us about job titles this month. And it's something I've often wondered about, and haven't really had a clue about for the past fifteen years. My…

Code doesn't tend to generate emotions in the same way that a painting might. The architecture of a piece of software doesn't make us marvel in the same way as…

The topic for this month's delayed T-SQL Tuesday is career advice. Specifically, asking what the best we've received is. I have three kids, aged 25, 23, and 15. So I'd…

Hybrid user group meetings can be good. And by 'hybrid user group meetings' I mean user group meetings that are a mix of remote and in-person, not user group meetings…

At the Microsoft Build conference this week, the biggest of the data-focused announcements was about Microsoft Fabric. I'd had a lot of conversations about Fabric under NDA agreements in the…

Well, Tomaz said ChatGPT rather than AI, but I'm going to comment on AI in general. And I know this post will date very quickly, but that's expected. Right now…

The topic this month (from Reitse Eskens - @2meterDBA) is about “Fun T-SQL”. Now, I remember writing T-SQL to create palindromes once. It’s over at https://www.itprotoday.com/sql-server/palindromes-puzzle-solutions, and dates back to…