It’s a recovery strategy, not a backup strategy
I’ve talked about it before; you shouldn’t have a backup strategy, you should have a recovery strategy. I can’t possibly care if my backups succeed if I’m not bothering to test that they can be restored. And if they can’t …
General program for PASS Summit 2024 now available
The post General program for PASS Summit 2024 now available appeared first on SQLServerCentral.
Meet the new Google AI Assistant Gemini
Introduction to Gemini Gemini’s intro. In the beginning, there was Bard. A powerful language model, crafted by Google AI, it brought forth a new era of communication and understanding. Bard, with its vast knowledge and ability to process information, b …
What does SQL NULL mean and how to handle NULL values
The post What does SQL NULL mean and how to handle NULL values appeared first on SQLServerCentral.
How much Space can I expect to recover from a rebuild after dropping a column?
In my last article – Identify Tables With Dropped Columns – we saw how we can identify tables that have columns that were dropped. Today, we are going to check a way to approximately calculate how much space we can expect to recover if we rebuild our t …
[Video] Office Hours in Sofia, Bulgaria
I was honored to speak at the Present to Succeed conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, run by a former SQL Server MCM. Sofia is a beautiful city, and the gorgeous Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky (Wikipedia) was close to my hotel, so I dragged my …
Microsoft Fabric, the Land of Wizards and Trolls
In my previous article (What is Microsoft Fabric All About) I explained what Microsoft Fabric is, how it came about and whether it brings anything new to the data insights domain. In this article, I would like to go a bit deeper into the dark corners o …
Summer School Savings SALE is live!
Happy Fourth of July to all who celebrate! I’m looking forward to a great view Thursday evening looking west along the Skagit Valley with some friends up at Camp Savage. I’ve just made our 2024 SQLskills Summer School Savings SALE live! I …
Save $350 on the PASS Summit if You Register Now.
Next Tuesday, pricing on the 3-day tickets for the PASS Data Community Summit goes up to $2,095. But if you register right now, plus use coupon code BRENTO24, it’s just $1,745. It’s one in-person conference that covers Microsoft SQL Server, …
Prevent Duplicate Records in SQL using Filtered Index
The post Prevent Duplicate Records in SQL using Filtered Index appeared first on SQLServerCentral.
Does Bit Column Order Matter in Tables?
At the PGConf.dev, where Postgres developers get together and strategize the work they wanna do for the next version, I attended a session where Matthias van de Meent talked about changing the way Postgres stores columns. As of right now (Postgres 17), …
T-SQL Tuesday #176: One piece of advice you wish Past You had
After so many years, here in July 2024, I am finally hosting T-SQL Tuesday. The challenge One of the things I tend to do when I am working on a project is to think of myself over three time periods. The past, present and the future. The past version of …
Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for July 2024
The next release would normally be August, but I’m doing a release a little early in order to fix 2 issues with the Consultant Toolkit. The May release broke the ability to automatically upload results to Amazon S3, and didn’t include all o …
Extending Get-Process to show the Process Chain using PowerShell Proxy Functions
A proxy function or wrapper function allows you to deploy a custom version of a function or cmdlet while the internal functionality remains implemented. That means you can get a core cmdlet or function, add parameters (or remove), and write the code fo …
Getting Your DBA Teams Scripts into Git
One of the things that many teams of DBAs have is a set of scripts they use in their various environments. These are usually built over time for specific purposes and often help ensure that the team can quickly diagnose and solve issues. These might al …