“AI will take our jobs” scares folks away. This past weekend I took a photo of a plant that’s in a bad way, and asked ChatGPT for support. I got a full rundown of positioning, care, pruning – immediate steps based on what it saw in the photo. The reality of AI is very different […]
Large data solutions can span multiple databases. I’ve recently shared how amazing Database Projects can be but objects which reference across database boundaries can throw up warnings. Is the code solid or have you picked the wrong table and column combination? – you won’t know, and the code is fragile. This is where References come into play. They make […]
Being a Data Engineer, this month’s invitation from Meagan resonates. She’s asked us to share a tip, technique, or lesson about detecting changes – which can be crucial to reduce workload across a large dataset. I’ll rewind back a number of years to an overnight batch process which ingested key transactional data for a business. Due to […]
A regular Database Project deployment is static and delivers consistent results regardless of environment. When it comes to schema, that’s usually desired, but data is a different story. Data is environment specific. You want a Database Project that works across all environments. You want smarter deployments. You need SQLCMD Variables. What are SQLCMD variables SQLCMD is a […]
Last month in SSMS v22.4, we had the Database DevOps (preview) workload introduced which brings with it Database Projects. Last week I shared my favourite features for them which make deployments amazing. But if you’ve tried them out in SSMS you might have noticed that not everything is present. It’s a preview, after all. So what can we […]
If you’ve been using Database Projects for simply maintaining copies of your database objects – like I used to – then you’ve been missing out on the power of its deployments. Initially I was sceptical about how it could effectively perform upgrades but after seeing them land in SSMS last month I wanted to revisit them as a means […]
Failover Groups for Managed Instances are a great option to replicate data, but they don’t replicate key instance elements – one of which is logins that live in the master database. If left unchecked, failovers leave systems unable to connect and panic ensues. To alleviate this we’ll look at a script to synchronise logins and […]
Having TOP (1) return multiple rows feels wrong… but that’s what WITH TIES can do. For a long time I used patterns like this to get the first record in a group: Then I found the cleaner alternative: Let’s dive into what it is, and why you (probably) shouldn’t use it. WITH TIES The WITH TIES syntax was added over 20 years ago but it […]
Most SQL Server environments have more jobs, schedules, and hidden complexities than you realise. It’s only when you arrive at a migration and peek under the hood that the scale is clear. Here we’ll pull out details from msdb to give a clear snapshot of what you’ll actually be dealing with. If you don’t understand the effort […]
Last week I demonstrated a fast binary search approach to quickly slice through large unindexed tables. I love the approach, but it fell short in two key areas – drop-in usage, and proper boundary handling. Why Let’s recap what we’re doing here: Large append-heavy tables – like logs or audits – often don’t have a useful index […]
Andy Brownsword 