I am delighted to announce that I have been selected to speak at the largest Microsoft Data Platform conference in the world, PASS Summit 2019, in Seattle WA, USA. As our database community has extended… Speaking at PASS Summit 2019
(This post was updated on 5 February 2022.) A few months ago I suggested that the following settings should be the default for most SQL Server instances: Set cost threshold for parallelism to 50 Disable… Proposed SQL Server defaults: optimize for ad hoc workloads
Heads up for SQL Server on Linux folks using availability groups and Pacemaker. Pacemaker 1.1.18 has been out for a while now, but it’s worth mentioning that there was a behaviour change in how it… SQL Server on Linux – feature change in Pacemaker 1.1.18
(This post was updated on 5 February 2022.) A few months ago I suggested that the following settings should be the default for most SQL Server instances: Set cost threshold for parallelism to 50 Disable… Proposed SQL Server defaults: disable priority boost
(This post was updated on 5 February 2022.) A few months ago I suggested that the following settings should be the default for most SQL Server instances. Set cost threshold for parallelism to 50 Disable… Proposed SQL Server defaults: disable lightweight pooling
A few months ago, Microsoft announced that SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) will no longer include the visual Database Diagrams feature from v18.0 onward. [Edit: Microsoft reversed this decision with SSMS 18.1, and the designer… Database modelling in a post-SSMS world: dbForge Studio
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
(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)
Shall I compare thee to Management Studio? Thou art more scriptable and consistent. Those out-of-memory errors do tend to lose hours of work. And I mean, SSMS doesn’t run from the command line. Sometimes I… Do you even PowerShell, bro? An ode to dbatools and dbachecks.
Folks, we all like to make sure we’re doing our level best to make things work smoothly. So why am I staring at someone’s server that has never been updated since it was first set… Update your production servers and stop making excuses about it
I was minding my own business innocently reading a blog post by Erik Darling, when this tip smacked me in the proverbial forehead. I even learned something that had always bothered me but had been… T-SQL aside: replace PRINT with RAISERROR
Last week I had the privilege of reviewing possibly the best SQL Server production environment I’ve seen in Canada. During the follow-up meeting, the senior DBA and I had a discussion about Virtual Log Files… Virtual Log Files: 200 or 1000?
By now you have probably seen the news about a major flaw in the design of CPUs from all major vendors (Intel, AMD, and ARM) resulting in a series of vulnerabilities in operating systems and… Secure or fast? Secure, obviously …