The Performance of Window Aggregates Revisited with SQL Server 2019
In 2005 and 2012, Microsoft introduced a number of windowing functions in SQL Server, like my favourite function LAG. These functions perform well, but, in my opinion, the main benefit is making complicated queries easier to write. I’ve been fasc …
Create, Protect and manage non-production databases with SQL Provision
SQL Provision allows teams to create a secure, scalable and repeatable process for managing data as it moves through your SQL Server estate, without causing administrative burdens. Tony Davis explains how SQL Provision can work alongside your existing …
SQL SERVER – Cannot Drop the Assembly ‘ISSERVER’, Because it Does not Exist or You do not Have Permission
As they say – There are more ways than one to skin a cat. In this blog we will find another method to fix an error which you might see during SQL upgrades – Cannot drop the assembly ‘ISSERVER’, because it does not exist or you d …
What Microsoft's Open Source PostgreSQL Acquisition Portends for SQL Server
Microsoft’s acquisition of Citus Data expands on the Azure commitment to open source and may provide horizontal scaling for SQL Server.
What is Consolidation of Index? – Interview Question of the Week #212
Question: What is Consolidation of Index? Answer: In the recent SQL Server Performance Tuning Practical Workshop, I was asked this question and the answer to this question is really not as straight forward as want to have. Here is an example of wh …
SQL SERVER – Enabling Older Legacy Cardinality Estimation
Yesterday, I had a very interesting situation, one of our Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check client immediately called me on Skype with his entire server going continuously stopping due to a very toxic poison wait type of Re …
[Video] An Introduction to GitHub for DBAs
Distributed source control is really intimidating: branches, pull requests, merges – will somebody just take my code, for crying out loud? Why does it have to be so complicated and involved? I’m with you: I hated GitHub. For years, I strugg …
SQL SERVER – Find Out Current Language of the Session
After reading my post SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Playing with DateTime with Customer Data, one of my blog readers asked me “How to find out the current language setting of the session?” With the help of the system variable and system …
Apache Cassandra Data Modeling and Query Best Practices
Apache Cassandra database is a distributed, fault tolerant, linearly scalable, column-oriented, NoSQL database. Apache Cassandra is great at handling massive amounts of structured (table has defined columns), and semi-structured (table row doesn’ …
DevOps Without the Database: A Cautionary Tale
You hear often how DevOps doesn’t work with databases, or conversely that the people responsible for databases don’t work with DevOps. Neither should be true, but both frequently are. When people say that “DevOps doesn’t work wi …
What Queries Does Microsoft’s Telemetry Service Run On Your SQL Server?
I was working in my lab and I was having some odd blocking waits that I wasn’t expecting. I started firing up sp_WhoIsActive to see what queries were running, and I got a rather odd surprise: sp_WhoIsActivelyRunningTelemetryQueries (click to see …
Keeping sensitive Data secure outside of Production
Part of the complication of implementing DevOps into database development is the involvement of data. Microsoft MVP Grant Fritchey explores the use of dynamic data masking and the strategies that can protect the data when it moves into less secure envi …
Visual Studio – FIX: The ‘SqlStudio Profile Package’ Package Did Not Load Correctly
I am not sure what changes I made in one of my Virtual Machine, but I was running into an issue. In this blog, we would discuss how to fix error “The ‘SqlStudio Profile Package’ package did not load correctly” while launching Vi …
The Next Mastering Series is About to Start. Wanna Save $2,000?
Ever wanted to take my Mastering series of classes? I recommend that you take ’em in a specific order because each class builds on the next. If you try to parachute in out of order, you’re gonna have a bad time. The next rotation is about t …
Stairway to Data, Level 1: The Basics
A great deal of the confusion that occurs when a database application is developed comes from a poor understanding of the basics of data. Here, Joe Celko gives a broad coverage of the difficulties you’re likely to meet when handling data in databases