Database Animations: What’s a Residual Predicate and Why Is It Bad?
Normally when you're looking at an execution plan, and you see an index seek followed by a key lookup, that means it's running relatively quickly.
AI Experience Gap that we keep talking about
Earlier this week, I recorded a talk called “AI: The Good, Bad, and the Future.” I talked about some of the good things that have happened with AI and some of the Bad. But what I really wanted to focus on was the future. I think many of us have heard the two letters AI […]
I Don't Want To Do XX
This Friday Steve is looking for those things you wish you didn't have to handle at work. Let us know what tasks you avoid and would rather hand off to others.
Managing Feature Flags with GET_BIT() and SET_BIT() in SQL Server
Learn how the bitwise functions SET_BIT() and GET_BIT() can be used to manage data stored inside a single column.
9 things I wish SQL Server had (and why they’d matter)
Anyone who’s spent years writing T-SQL has a mental list of “why doesn’t SQL Server just do this already?” moments. Here are 9 of those from Louis Davidson’s perspective – a wish list of practical, coding-oriented feature requests drawn from real-world pain points.
Databricks Genie Spaces for SQL Analysts: Natural Language Querying Without Leaving Your Data Platform
If you've spent years writing SQL for a living, you already know how this goes. Someone pings you on Teams asking, "How many active customers do we have in the Midwest this quarter?" There you are, back in the query editor, writing a JOIN you've written fifty times before. Genie Spaces in Databricks is built […]
The Costs of Multiple Platforms
Lots of organizations use multiple database platforms. Steve notes there is a cost to choosing to allow this.
How Azure Arc allows a DB admin to become SQL Server sysadmin – the vulnerability explained
Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server is designed to bring on-premises and multi-cloud SQL Server instances under centralized Azure management, but a newly documented privilege escalation technique shows how that same management workflow can be turned against the server it’s meant to protect.
Webinar: What Application Owners Need to Know About SQL Server
If you own a business application, you’re accountable for its uptime, its cost, and its performance, even if you’ve never opened SQL Server Management Studio in your life. But most guidance out there is written for DBAs, not for the people who actually make decisions about the app.
This webinar on Sept 16 is different. We’ll walk through real findings from real SQL Server environments — the kind of things that quietly cause slow page loads, failed backups, and surprise outages — and translate each one into what it actually means for you: What did it cost? What was the risk? What would you have needed to ask your team (or your vendor) to catch it sooner?
Does the Job Matter To You?
How important is your job to you? Today's guest editorial from Andy Warren asks the question of the professionals out there, some of whom do great work, but don't care about their jobs.
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward
By Steve Jones
This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...
dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts
You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)
By SQLPals
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...
Forums
Risk Vs Reward, The never ending ROI discussion.
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Risk Vs Reward, The never...
Trigger isn't working
Hi, I have a trigger, that works fine elsewhere but is not working at...
Question of the Day
Hyperscale Replicas IV
In Azure SQL Database Hyperscale Edition, how many geo-replicas can be created?
See possible answers