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If not me, then who?
[Content Warning: this post contains references to subjects that may trigger a trauma response. Read with caution.]
This is not a technical post. I was going to write about how SQL Server stores the sql_variant data type this week, but something more important came up which involves almost 50% of the adult population worldwide, including me1As some of my readers know — especially if you read my article on SQL Server Central at the end of July 2020 — I am nonbinary, and it would be super convenient to hide behind that label when we have to talk about the behaviour of men. But I look like a man, I sound like a man, and I dress like a man. Unless I tell someone otherwise, the general perception is that I’m a man. For all intents and purposes in this discussion I’m including myself, and I’m calling out other men for their behaviour towards women..
Men, it’s 2020. We have to do better.
It’s hard enough to be a woman online, to exist in the public eye as a woman, to be constantly judged — even rated — according to a manufactured ideal of sex appeal that has no basis in biology or science. Add into that mix a woman who is in a technical field, science, biology, or chemistry, heck, even the arts, and the judgement is increased exponentially. How do I know? Women tell me. Believe women.
How SQL Server stores data types: XML
This week we’re looking at how the database engine stores the XML data type in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. If you would like to read about storage of other data types, here are the previous posts in the series: Bit columns Dates and times Integers and decimals Money Floating points GUIDs What is XML?
-> Continue reading How SQL Server stores data types: XML
The final word on storage for DATETIME2
Two years ago I wrote a post that got a lot of traction in the comments at the time. Last month there was renewed interest because one of the commenters noted that the official SQL Server documentation for DATETIME2 disagreed with my assertions, and that I was under-representing the storage requirements. To remind you, I
-> Continue reading The final word on storage for DATETIME2
Using the Xero OAuth 2.0 API from a .NET Core console application
This is not a post about SQL Server, but I need to write about something that I’ve been struggling with for a number of weeks so that other people don’t have to. A few months ago Xero announced that they would be moving their API authentication mechanism to OAuth 2.0. This is good news for
-> Continue reading Using the Xero OAuth 2.0 API from a .NET Core console application
Finally, PASS is a proper association now
For the longest time PASS was known as the Professional Association for SQL Server, and made all of its money from a single event each year, the PASS Summit. If you’ve ever attended a SQLSaturday, you’re a member of PASS. If you’ve ever attended the PASS Summit, you’re a member of PASS. If you’ve ever attended
-> Continue reading Finally, PASS is a proper association now
Fun and profit with UTF-8
When SQL Server 2019 was announced, it brought with it UTF-8 support. Also available in Azure SQL Database, UTF-8 is exciting if you have a legacy database and application that needs to support Unicode strings for globalization, but you can’t afford to double the storage requirement by converting all your CHAR and VARCHAR columns to
-> Continue reading Fun and profit with UTF-8
Managing virtual machine drives on ESXi
Recently I migrated my home lab from a SuperMicro SYS-E300-8D to something a little beefier. There were ten virtual machines on the SuperMicro server, nine which were allocated 127 GB of thin-provisioned storage, and one VM with 256 GB of thin-provisioned storage. Thin provisioning — as the name implies — lets the guest operating system
-> Continue reading Managing virtual machine drives on ESXi
I am speaking at the PASS Virtual Summit 2020
After being selected to present my full day pre-conference session at the Summit, I am very pleased to announce that I will also be presenting my Database Administration Through the Ages talk that originated at the Victoria SQL Saturday (which I also presented at the Adelaide user group). Now that PASS has gone virtual with
-> Continue reading I am speaking at the PASS Virtual Summit 2020
These are the extensions I have installed on Azure Data Studio
At last week’s presentation to the Edmonton SQL Server user group, I spoke at length about the many extensions that are available for Azure Data Studio, and was asked by Chris Wood to share all the extensions I use. It’s worth mentioning that for the most part Azure Data Studio extensions are extremely lightweight, both
-> Continue reading These are the extensions I have installed on Azure Data Studio
MAXDOP: not quite what you think
An important change to the MAXDOP documentation was made last week, with a good write up by Pedro Lopes (Twitter), a Program Manager on the SQL Server team at Microsoft. First though, some background on parallelism. How do parallel queries work on SQL Server? SQL Server uses a costing algorithm to decide how “expensive” a
-> Continue reading MAXDOP: not quite what you think