Announcing New Live Online Classes! Save 50% to Celebrate.
I used to run live online classes all year round, and I really miss it. I’ve had such a good time at conferences lately, and I feel like it’s time to bring the live stuff back. Plus I don’t know about you, but I have a heck of a hard time paying attent …
How I built an app just by talking to an AI LLM – the good, the bad, and what I’d do differently next time (part one)
Like most of you, I’ve been using AI large language models (LLMs) at work and at hobby level for a couple of years now. Snippets of code, the odd data conversion, a small database for a presentation. What I hadn’t done — and what kept nagging at me — w …
Exposing a SQL injection vulnerability you’ve never heard of (what it is, how it works, and key takeaways)
SQL injection is one of the oldest and most well-understood vulnerability classes in software security. Most developers know the rules: use parameterized queries, avoid string concatenation, sanitize your inputs. And yet, SQL injection vulnerabilities …
[Video] Office Hours in a Lava Field
On a 12-hour layover in Keflavik, I pulled over my Suzuki Jimny (love these little things, and we can’t buy them in the US) in some of the freshest real estate in the world and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. This is …
Why you should still become SQL-certified in 2026 (and how to achieve it)
It may seem that in today’s rapidly evolving landscape of AI and digital threats, becoming certified is a thing of the past. A throwback, perhaps, to forums circa 2015, where seeing ‘SQL-certified’ community members was the norm. However, many people a …
I’m Coming to the #PassDataSummit in Seattle!
The lineup for the PASS Data Community Summit Seattle event was just released,and I’m proud to share that I’ll be teaching my new all-day pre-conference workshop. Dev-Prod Demon Hunters: Finding the Real Cause of Production Slowness Production is slow. …
Vector search in SQL Server: VECTOR_DISTANCE, VECTOR_SEARCH, and index trade-offs
In this article, I’ll explain how to implement vector search in SQL Server using the VECTOR_DISTANCE and VECTOR_SEARCH functions. You’ll learn how vector indexes work, when to use them, and what the key trade-offs are — including the current read-only …
The SQL Server Transaction Log, Part 4: Log Records
(This post first appeared on SQLperformance.com four years ago as part of a blog series, before that website was mothballed later in 2022 and the series was curtailed. Reposted here with permission, with a few tweaks.) Previously I’ve talked about why …
We’re Discontinuing SQL ConstantCare and the Consultant Toolkit. Here’s Why.
About ten years ago, I sketched out an idea for a different kind of SQL Server monitoring tool: one that gathered data just once per day, and gave you a short email with a specific list of actionable tasks to make a difference in health and performance …
How to anonymize PII in LLM pipelines (5 key techniques explained)
Large language models (LLMs) and the agents built on top of them ingest everything they are given, including personally-identifiable information (PII). In workflows where PII is inevitable, proper measures should exist for data sanitization. Data can l …
From anthropology to analytics: how to build a data career with no prior experience (10 tips from a Microsoft MVP)
Kristyna Ferris didn’t come from a traditional tech background. She studied anthropology, stumbled into data through an admin job, taught herself Power BI on her lunch breaks, and eventually built a career that spans Microsoft Fabric, PySpark, Python, …
[Video] Office Hours: Off St. Thomas
I’m at sea again, this time cruising aboard the Disney Treasure off of St. Thomas. Let’s go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. 00:00 Start 01:40 DbaMan: You have been reulctant to turn on ADR. It is required for opti …
It’s 2026. Why are databases still failing GDPR compliance audits?
Seven years after GDPR came into force, European regulators have issued over 2,245 fines totalling nearly 5.65 billion euros — and enforcement shows no sign of slowing down. Yet most compliance conversations focus on legal and governance failures, whil …
And Then There Was The Time RCSI Actually Made Query Results More Accurate.
Normally when I tell people about SQL Server’s optimistic concurrency isolation levels, Read Committed Snapshot Isolation (RCSI) and Snapshot Isolation (SI), I have to give them a little speech about how they need to test their queries because the resu …
Why even the best teams struggle with cloud migrations
According to Redgate’s 2026 State of the Database Landscape report, 91% of teams – no matter how experienced – still hit at least one significant challenge during their move to the cloud. The culprit usually isn’t poor execution, but the things no one …