I am still amused by terminology in the Information Technology field. Words like “Kubernetes,” “containers,” and the BASIC keywords PEEK and POKE, all bring a smile to my lips every time I read or say… Infrastructure matters, even in the Cloud
While working on my Swart’s Ten Percent Rule post last week, I needed to test the Windows version of the script on my SQL Server 2016 instance. Just before removing all the databases, I noticed… Some databases may show a NULL collation in the sys.databases DMV
My friend Michael J. Swart has a rule of thumb he calls Swart’s Ten Percent Rule. If you’re using over 10% of what SQL Server restricts you to, you’re doing it wrong. After a recent… Flagrantly ignoring the 10% rule
On 1 December 2018, Microsoft is increasing Azure subscription prices in Canadian dollars by 5%. The following is taken directly from the email I received on 1 November 2018. Starting December 1, 2018, prices for… Price increase for Azure in Canadian dollars
Last time we looked at adding or subtracting date parts using the DATEADD() T-SQL system function. This week we see how to calculate the difference between two date-time values using DATEDIFF() and DATEDIFF_BIG(). The syntax… Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATEDIFF() and DATEDIFF_BIG()
We are now in the home stretch of the long-running series about dates and times in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. This week we look at one of my favourite T-SQL functions when it… Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATEADD()
This scheduled post is coming to you from Seattle, where the PASS Summit 2018 has just kicked off. Because it is a scheduled post, I have no idea what announcements from the convention will be… PASS Summit Speaker Idol 2018
SQL Server 2019 Preview (CTP 2.0) introduced a long-awaited improvement to an error message that’s been around in SQL Server for many years, but was unhelpful: Msg 8152, Level 16, State 6, Procedure ProcedureName, Line… String or binary data would be truncated: get the full picture in SQL Server 2017
Since the release of SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 in April 2009, it has been possible to install SQL Server with media that includes the latest patches, whether they be Service Packs (for SQL… Create a slipstream installer for SQL Server on Windows
(This post was updated on 5 February 2022.) Tempting headline, isn’t it? It might even seem like clickbait, but that’s not the intention. The SQL Server default configuration is not recommended for production environments, and… Fix SQL Server with one click
On Monday of this week, Microsoft announced changes to the servicing model for SQL Server, starting with SQL Server 2017. From today onward, we can expect to see the following during the first five years… Changes to the SQL Server servicing model (Cumulative Updates)
Some time ago we started a new series here, called Database Fundamentals. The very first post in that series asked what a database is. One of the major announcements at Ignite last month was that… What is a DBA anyway?
On Monday 24 September 2018, Microsoft announced a slew of stuff at their annual Ignite conference that is going to make life a lot more interesting for many people all over the world. There’s a… Azure means hybrid now
The Azure cloud platform lost a data centre for a number of hours recently due to inclement weather. This affected many customers — including Microsoft’s own services — for almost an entire day. Given that… Public Service Announcement: check your backup notifications
Fellow Canadian Doran Douglas brought this issue to my attention recently, and I wanted to share it with you as well. Let’s say you have a file in UTF-8 format. What this means is that… Bulk insert issue with UTF-8 fixed-width file format