[Video] Office Hours: Microsoft Database Q&A
Let’s go through a LOT of your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento on a VERY early Saturday morning. 00:00 Start 01:52 DBAInAction: Hi Brent Microsoft just announced Automatic Index Compaction for Azure SQL and Fabric. do you see t …
Everything you need to know about MongoBleed (CVE-2025-14847)
MongoBleed (CVE-2025-14847) was defined as “the vulnerability of the year.” In this article, find out what it is, why it’s dangerous, and if (and when) you should care about it. But first, some context. Back in April 2014, a vulnerability in the TLS ex …
Contest: Make the Comments Look Like My ChatGPT History.
Let’s have some fun. Put yourself in the frame of mind of the fella who writes this blog. What do you think I send to ChatGPT? In the comments, write prompts that you think I’m sending to the giant robots. In one week, I’ll go through ’em and pick my f …
How Multi-Column Statistics Work
The short answer: in the real world, only the first column works. When SQL Server needs data about the second column, it builds its own stats on that column instead (assuming they don’t already exist), and uses those two statistics together – but they’ …
How to minimize downtime in a cloud migration
Pat Wright details how to plan cloud migration with minimal downtime. Learn key cutover strategies, testing methods, and critical questions to avoid data loss and system failure. Whenever I start a migration, one of the primary questions is: “how much …
Who’s Hiring Database People? April 2026 Edition
Is your company hiring for a database position as of April 2026? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people who read this blog? Let’s make a love connection. If your company is hiring, leave a comment. The rules: Your comment must include the job title …
SQL Server 2025 CU4 Adds Automatic Updates
Big news for everyone who has to manage Microsoft SQL Server, whether they’re DBAs, sysadmins, or developers. Seven years ago, Microsoft announced automatic, downtime-free hot patching of the SQL Server engine in Azure SQL DB. The tail end of that post …
First Normal Form (1NF): Breaking the ‘unbreakable rule’ in database design
First Normal Form (1NF) is the most widely known rule in database normalization. It requires that tables contain no repeating groups and that each column holds atomic values. But, in real-world database systems, developers often intentionally break thi …
How to Draw Line Graphs in SSMS
Ever just need a quick visualization of some numbers to get a rough idea of the trend, like this: Option 1: ask Copilot to write the query for you. In SSMS v22.3 and newer, with the results query on your screen, open up SSMS Copilot and copy/paste this …
How to set up a data analysis environment in esProc SPL (compared to Python)
This article is the first in this six-part “Moving from Python to esProc SPL” series. You’ll learn how to set up esProc SPL, install it on different operating systems, configure your development environment, and load your first dataset. You’ll also wri …
I’m Coming to the PASS Summit in Frankfurt!
The pre-conference lineup for the PASS Data Community Summit Frankfurt 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 P …
How User-Defined Types work in PostgreSQL: a complete guide
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say, sometimes I get sidetracked. In this particular instance, I hadn’t intended to start learning about User-Defined Types (UDT) in PostgreSQL – I just wanted to test a behavior that involved creating a UDT. But, once I s …
[Video] Office Hours: Q&A on the Mountaintop
Well, maybe mountain is a bit of a strong word, but it’s one of the highest elevation home sites in Las Vegas, with beautiful views over the valley, the Strip, the airport, and the surrounding mountains. Let’s go through your top-voted questions from h …
SQL101: Top Ten SQL Server Performance Tuning Best Practices
There are a huge number of best practices around SQL Server performance tuning – I could easily write a whole book on the topic, especially when you consider the number of different database settings, server settings, coding practices, wait types, and …
Y’all Are Getting Good Free AI Advice from PasteThePlan.
PasteThePlan has a new AI Suggestions tab, and it’s been really fun to watch the query plans come in and the advice go out. Here are some examples: Date “tables” – when I looked at the query, I glossed over the real problem. I thought arc_Calendar was …