TRY_PARSE Limitations: #SQLNewBlogger

I got a notification from a question I’d posted at SQL Server Central: Getting the Average. A user had posted their repro didn’t work, with no real comment. As...

SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices

SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices

In the Windows administration world, it's pretty much a standard practice to rename the local administrator...

Stanford Emerging Technology Review 2026 Report is out

Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing are two areas of emerging technology that receive most of the tech news. However, the Stanford Emerging Technology Review tries to include any relevant...

How I Troubleshoot a Slow SQL Server Live

No two SQL Server environments are alike. A fix that resolves a performance issue in one environment may not work in another because every SQL Server instance has different...

T-SQL Tuesday #201 Invitation: Temp Tables, Friend or Foe?

My T-SQL Tuesday #201 invitation. Do temp tables help performance or hurt it? I argue moving data into a #temp table is usually the wrong reflex, and invite you...

Monday Monitor Tips: The MCP Server

I have been experimenting with MCP servers in a few ways, and pressing on our Redgate Monitor team to add one to their system. They did, started adding tools,...

Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK

Programmatic Tool Calling with the Claude SDK

Every morning somebody on the team runs the same check. Thirty tables in the staging schema, and the only thing anyone wants to...

A New Word: Mauerbauertraurigkeit

mauerbauertraurigkeit – n. inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company you generally enjoy, like a poker player who keeps folding a promising hand in order...

Methodology for dealing with bad data in production

Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad data in production. If you’ve never been in this situation, having a plan beforehand is...

How to Provision an Azure SQL Database

Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database is another great tool for learning SQL. You can even use it for low-traffic or...