Statistics, data warehouse mistakes and more in Database Weekly (2021-02-06)

Let it go

I’ve been digging through the 18 years’ worth of articles, editorials, blogs, contests, interviews, promotions, and announcements over at Simple Talk. There are over 5000 posts, and many are quite outdated, especially those announcing beta versions of software or other time-sensitive content. Some articles haven’t seen the light of day for 10 years, yet some seemingly outdated articles still get lots of hits. I’m trying to figure out what should be archived and what might be worth promoting again.

Like so many others, I’m also going through some closets and drawers at home. While cleaning out a cabinet, I found the floppy disks for QuickBASIC from 30 years ago. While the language has some sentimental value for me since it’s where I first learned programming logic, I don’t even have a way to load the disks. Sadly, they went in the bin.

There is a big movement to clean up popularized by Marie Kondo of KonMari fame, but it isn’t easy to let things go. While sorting and organizing, one will find so many forgotten objects. Suddenly, that object feels valuable even though no one has thought of it for years – or decades.

It gets worse the longer you live in one place. If you relocate frequently, you are forced to deal with your clutter. Just watch out for those storage facilities where excess junk lives on. If you stay in one home for a long time like I have, it’s easy to accumulate so many unnecessary things.

A few years ago, I had an 18-month consulting engagement where I had to be onsite every other week. I found a hotel a few miles from the office with comfortable three-room suites each with a small kitchen. I just needed to bring clothes and electronics with me each time I visited. Traveling that much made me realize something important: I really don’t need that much stuff.

Kathi Kellenberger

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

Making sure your SQL Servers are secured against malicious users is difficult. The United States Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) publishes a set of guidelines for organizations securing different pieces of software that connect to the US Department of Defense’s networks (DoD). Whether you’re working with the DoD or not, these Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) are a good resource to help you understand potential security vulnerabilities and mitigate them.

Would you like the chance to win a Pluralsight subscription? Redgate is giving away a three-month subscription to the technical skills platform, along with a Redgate goodie bag in their latest competition. To enter, visit the Redgate Forums and answer the question ‘What’s your favorite SQL Monitor feature and why?’

With less than 2 weeks until Redgate Summit: The Future of Database DevOps, check out this blogpost for what's in store, spoilers from our speakers on what they're most excited to share on the day, and why you should attend.

Phil Factor explains how to get started with Flyway, as simply as possible, using PowerShell. This article provides a practice set of database automation scripts that will build a SQL Server database, and then update it, running a series of migrations scripts that make some schema alterations, and load the database with test data.

On a number of recent installs of SQL Server that ...

You're connecting into your network using a VPN. But when you try to connect to the SQL Server, you get "The login is from an untrusted domain". Here's how...

Statistics are vitally important in allowing SQL S...

Welcome back to my ongoing series about how we perform regular server reviews here at Dallas DBAs, and the tips and tricks I’ve picked up in my first 1.5...

Recently I needed to take a look at all of the SQL Server Agent Jobs and their Jobs Steps for a customer. Specifically, I needed to review all of... The...

SQL Server triggers are another tool in your DBA or Dev toolbox. Edward Pollack explains what can go wrong with triggers and how to correct those issues.

Mastering TempDB is a critical skills for SQL Server DBAs. In this article, Monica Rathbun explains the basics of TempDB including configuration.

The SQL Server error log is helpful for troubleshooting issues. Greg Larsen demonstrates several ways to search SQL Server error log files.

Azure Synapse Link allows you to connect to your t...

In this post I want to cover how you can transform your SQL Server database schema for a dedicated SQL Pool if you are using Azure DevOps...

Azure SQL has a close relationship with Azure Stor...

There is a new (ish) interface to looking and conf...

Join Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Grant Fritchey, for this 35-minute introduction to SQL Monitor. You'll discover how the simplicity of set up and installation enables a sophisticated tool to monitor your full estate.

I was listening to a podcast last week about PowerShell, when one of the hosts mentioned having to ‘up arrow’ back through your history to find a command you wanted to rerun...

There is no shortage of PowerShell editors and environments for developing and running scripts. Greg Moore explains some of his favorites.… The post PowerShell editors and environments part 1 appeared...

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we described how data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) projects are a high priority for many organizations...

DBAs are in great demand, but what if you are recr...

There is more to DevOps than tools and automation....

Both, Azure Data Factory and Azure Databricks offe...

I made a few changes to SSIS Framework Manager CE ...

In this blog post, let’s see how to change all the IP addresses involved in a typical Always on Availability group configuration...

Introduced in December 2020, the DEFINE TABLE statement lets you define a calculated table local to a query...

I’m about simplifying anything for customers as ...

This part is the continuation of the series to the post Memory Grant Internals part 2. We have 1gb of memory. 1GB is 128000 pages. Each page is 8kb...

Erik Darling notes the edge cases where ISNULL() c...

Normally when we think about parameter sniffing, w...

Folks sometimes ask me, “When a table has more indexes, and SQL Server has more decisions to make, does that slow down execution plan generation?” Well, maybe, but the...

Re-Run There are a lot of posts about THREADPOOL on the internet, but what happens before your server threads go into the red? You might see other signs of...

Query folding is a key capability in Power Query. In short, query folding is the process by which the Power Query mashup engine takes the steps defined in...

In this series, learn how BlueGranite is helping a...

Level: Beginners First posted May 2015, Updated ...

What's the difference between Power BI slicers and...

I finally did it. I created a function I’ve been wanting to be able to use for *years*. Test-RsRestItemDataSource is here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve... The...

The German news magazine DER SPIEGEL has a regular...

Printing out R version is absolute no fun. So making it fun using the following useless-useful R function will make this little bit more interesting. Should be a print...

When working with SQL Server transactional replication, one of the common checks to see if things look healthy is to insert a tracer token into the replication data stream...

Today is Groundhog Day in North America which means we can plan out our weather for the next six weeks...

As I am starting to prep for writing about graphs ...

Total: 1 Average: 5The right application of the DE...

(You can see previous T-SQL Tuesday retrospectives by visiting this link.) In September 2010, Michael J. Swart (blog | Twitter) invited us to talk about indexes. Indexes are strange...