SQL Server management, tutorials, scripts, coding, programming and tips for database administrators

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Overview of Azure SQL Database Performance Monitoring 01/08/2019

Transitioning to the Platform-as-a-Service model typically implies relinquishing certain degree of control over your computing environment. One of the primary concerns related to this transition is diminished level of transparency providing insights into performance of cloud-resident workloads. Fortunately, with Azure SQL Database, you have a wide range of options that address this concern, allowing you to identify and remediate overwhelming majority of performance-related issues.

Customizing the Default Azure Data Studio Dashboards 01/03/2019

Explore the Azure Data Studio dashboards and see how to customize one of these dashboards to include a new widget.

New Preview of SQL Server Management Studio Available for Download 12/06/2018

On September 24^th Microsoft released the first Community Technical Preview for SQL Server 2019, which was CTP2.0. At the same time Microsoft pushed out a new preview for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) known as version 18. Now is the time to download this new preview!

SQL Server 2019 Community Technical Preview (CTP) 2.1 is Available Now 12/03/2018

Microsoft announced the release or CTP 2.1 for SQL Server 2019. This is the second CTP released for SQL Server 2019, and it has lots of new exciting features, like " UDF inlining". Read on to find out more!

Overview of Azure SQL Database Information Protection 11/01/2018

Information protection becomes one of the dominant factors that drive modern database design and implementation. This becomes particularly evident when operating in a cloud computing environment, with Azure SQL Database serving as one of the prime examples of this trend. Microsoft delivers relevant features by leveraging several different security-related Azure services. In this article, we will provide an overview of this functionality.

SQL Server on Amazon Web Services (AWS) 10/22/2018

Relational Database Service (RDS) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) are two different approaches, with their own advantages and limitations, for making Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL Server) available and maintaining MS SQL Server databases on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Installing SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.0 10/08/2018

Greg Larsen offers detailed instructions on how to install SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.0.

Overview of In-Memory Technologies of Azure SQL Database 10/04/2018

Azure SQL Database offers a straightforward approach to controlling its performance through vertical scaling. Despite its simplicity, scaling up has obvious pricing implications and, while it is an online operation, it might result in rollback of in-flight transactions. If you are looking for a supplemental approach to enhancing performance, then you might want to consider implementing in-memory technologies which are part of the Azure SQL Database feature set.

How Big is Your Transaction Log? 10/01/2018

If you are not managing the transaction log space used by a database, the transaction log might grow uncontrollably. With SQL Server 2017 there is a new dynamic management function (DMF) that exposes statistical information about a database transaction log. One of the things you can do with the information returned from this DMF is to determine how full a database transaction log file is.

SQL Server 2019 is Here 10/01/2018

On Monday, Sep 24, 2018, at the Ignite 2018 conference, Microsoft announced the first public preview of SQL Server 2019 (community technical preview (CTP) release of SQL Server 2.0).This new release of SQL Server is packed with many new features to improve performance, integrate your increasing volumes of corporate data, beef up security, and more. 

Modern Data Warehouse Design Pattern – Part II 09/20/2018

Join Anoop Kumar as he discusses two modern design patterns to handle Advanced Analytics on big data, and Real time analytics.

Azure SQL Database High Availability 09/06/2018

Site-wide or region-wide disasters, while undoubtedly more impactful, happen considerably less frequently than downtime resulting from scheduled maintenance events or isolated hardware and software faults. This article provides an overview of the high availability features of Azure SQL Database that mitigate risks affecting services within an individual Azure datacenter, rather than an entire Azure region.

Displaying and Removing Unprintable Hexadecimal Characters from SQL Server Data 09/04/2018

There are times when you might need to look at your SQL Server data in hexadecimal format. Occasionally some string data will contain unprintable characters, which can cause downstream problems, if not detected and removed. Read on to learn how to display and remove unprintable hexadecimal characters from SQL Server data.

Modern Data Warehouse Design Pattern – Part I 08/20/2018

The modern data warehouse design helps in building a hub for all types of data to initiate integrated and transformative solutions. To achieve these goals and to support modern designs, Microsoft has introduced a set of fully managed, cloud-based services that not only support modern data warehouse design patterns but also provide the advantages of inbuilt scalability, high availability, good performance, and flexibility.

Azure SQL Database Business Continuity Enhancements 08/06/2018

Marcin Policht provides an overview of a number of new features that facilitate Azure SQL Database business continuity.