Which index will SQL Server use to count all rows
This is a question that came up yesterday on Twitter: will SQL Server always do a table scan to find the result of SELECT COUNT
This is a question that came up yesterday on Twitter: will SQL Server always do a table scan to find the result of SELECT COUNT
On the last day of our week in Dublin we headed into the city centre to check out some of the sights. One of the
Over the last 18 months a group of SQL Server MVPs, led by Paul Nielsen and including Kimberly and I as editors, have been working on
One of the perennial problems facing both experienced and involuntary DBAs is how to tell whether a database is really in the Full recovery model
Last week I posted in-depth about how checkpoints work and what exactly goes on (see How do checkpoints work and what gets logged). About a
We're part-way through the Fall conference season, and in the middle of teaching week 1 of the current Microsoft Certified Master – SQL class. At
Yes, I'm a week late (at least) uploading these, and I apologize. But better late than never! For those lucky 48 people who attended our
The 35-page whitepaper on high availability I wrote for the SQL team over the summer has been published on MSDN. It’s a 2-300 level whitepaper
(Check out my Pluralsight online training course: SQL Server: Logging, Recovery, and the Transaction Log.) This is a blog post I’ve been meaning to do
(First blog post from Poland! We're here to present at the Microsoft Poland Technology Summit.) The October edition of TechNet Magazine is available on the
We've had a great week here in Dublin teaching our first public Immersion Event for a while – nearly 50 attendees spent the week with
Here's an interesting bug that surfaced recently, first reported by Bryan Smith on the MSDN disaster recovery/HA forum three weeks ago. One of the mechanisms I
At the start of September we took a trip out to Kalaloch and Cape Flattery. I've been there quite a few times but it was
This survey is based on a suggestion from Jonathan Kehayias (blog/Twitter). In this survey I'm asking two questions: When you're designing/implementing a database, do you
A few weeks ago I kicked off a survey asking what kind of disaster recovery guide/run-book/plan (I'll just call it a plan from now on)
While we were at Connections in Orlando in April, we sat down with our good friend Carl Franklin to discuss the conference, life, and a
I've been spending some time reorganizing my electronic components and came across a serious blast from the past… (Click the image for a larger
I'm constantly surprised by the number of people that don't follow the CSS SQL blog – some of the best SQL people in the industry
While we’re in Ireland teaching our Immersion Event (week-long in-depth class on SQL Server internals/performance/maintenance/DR), we’ll be doing a user group meeting as well in
In this survey I'd like to find out what kind of disaster recovery guide/run-book/plan you have, if any. When a disaster occurs, do you just
A few weeks ago I kicked off a survey on how you add geo-redundancy to a failover cluster (see here for the survey). The results
(Be sure to join our community to get our monthly newsletter with exclusive content, advance notice of classes with discount codes, and other SQL Server
I was reading a thread on SQL Server Central today where someone replied to a question and confused 823 with 832. Now, 823 is a
This week we're back down in Houston with a client and had a spare day so we decided to do the loop from Houston down
There's another SQL Quiz (from Chris Shaw) doing the rounds where people blog the answer and then tag someone. This I got tagged by two
Several times this week I've been asked about how to become an MVP. A few people have posted on this, but here's my take. I think
Here’s a question that came up recently: if I’ve upgraded a database from SQL 2000 or before, how can I tell if the data purity
We've finally nailed down the dates for all our Fall classes and conferences around the world. Here's the plan: September 21-25. Kimberly and I will be teaching
This is a question that came up at the Cleveland SQL Server User Group last night. An attendee had a wager with his colleagues about
This is a question that comes up every so often, most recently this morning while teaching a private class (and Kimberly's teaching now): how large
Thanks to the attention of some scurrilous parasites, all comments will now be moderated. And to said parasites, please be aware that there's no point
This week we're in Cleveland teaching on-site for a private client. We came a day early to recover from the journey and see some of
I'm moving away from strictly weekly surveys as they're a little demanding, especially when we're on the road. In this survey I'd like to know
A long time ago, in a blog post far, far away (well before I went offline in July) I kicked off a weekly survey about
It's been a while since I did a Where In The World Are Paul and Kimberly blog post, so here's one from a trip we
A new whitepaper has been published that comprehensively covers the Resource Governor feature of SQL Server 2008, written by fellow MVP Aaron Bertrand and SQL
The August edition of TechNet Magazine is available on the web now and has the latest installment of my regular SQL Q&A column. This month's
Kimberly and I will be teaching a week-long public Immersion Event in Dublin, September 21-25, in partnership with our good friends at Prodata and Microsoft Ireland.
This isn't a SQL Server blog post so doesn't count against my vacation. Just finished making the Lego model of the original Death Star that
Well – the first half of the year is over and it's been a pretty busy time for Kimberly and I. I only managed to
It's very commonly known that you can use the Script Wizard in Management Studio to script out tables or even an entire database. It's NOT
In this week's survey I'd like to know how often you run consistency checks on your *most critical* production database, regardless of *how* you run
In last week's survey I asked how you manage the size of your database *data* files – see here for the survey. Here are the
This afternoon we headed down to Lake Storey in Galesburg, IL to chill out and get some sun. While the kid's were splashing about in
(New for 2020: we’ve published a range of SQL Server interview candidate screening assessments with our partner Kandio, so you can avoid hiring an ‘expert’ who
I came across a question on ServerFault this afternoon that inflamed my desire to be ultra-geeky (it was really already inflamed after teaching backup and
It's lunchtime for my class – time for a blog post! This is an interesting one that crops up every so often (just an hour
A couple of weeks ago while Kimberly was in Mountain View at the same client I'm at, our good friend Richard Campbell sent me email
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