SQL Server Big Data Clusters (BDCs) are a highly anticipated feature of SQL Server 2019, but what are they – and how can their capabilities best be leveraged? Let's dig a little deeper and find out. When SQL Server 2017 added support for Linux, the groundwork was laid for integrating SQL Server with Spark, HDFS, and …

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Often when I am troubleshooting SQL Server or Azure SQL Database performance issues which I believe to be related to concurrency, I get curious about what isolation level is being used. But how does one find out the isolation level a query is executing with? There are actually several locations that may need to be …

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The Call for Speakers for PASS Summit 2019 has just closed, and now the Program Committee will begin the task of evaluating speakers and sessions and using those results to build a schedule. It's not easy. Really, it's not. I've served on the Program Committee numerous times and there's a lot of effort that goes into …

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Well, maybe the title is a little bit harsh. You absolutely can drop a SQL Server database that's offline, but remember that its files won't be deleted if you do. Safely Dropping Databases At a previous employer, we had a well-defined process when dropping databases for a client. It went something like this: Confirm …

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I'm always looking for new and interesting data sets for demonstration purposes. I enjoy using data that people can relate to – not only is it easily understood, but often it can be entertaining as well. This data set of real-world parking tickets does all that. A few weeks ago I came across this blog post by Matt …

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Months are funny. Unlike other parts of a date, they vary in length: The last second of a minute is always 59. The last minute of a hour is always 59. The last hour of a day is always 23. But the last day of a month? Well that depends on what month it is. And the year matters too because a leap year means February …

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SQL Server Mirroring has had a rough time the past few years. It was deprecated in SQL Server 2016, and now it's more or less being replaced by Basic Availability Groups, (which I love to refer to as "BAGS"). Database Mirroring hasn't gone the way of the Dodo yet though. Perhaps it won't be quite so popular …

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I very recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mohammad Darab. He asked some very insightful questions, and I'm so grateful he decided to ask me! You can read the full interview here. He also has a very impressive list of interviews on his site. See the entire list here!

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SQL Server 2016 is upon us, with all the much-anticipated hoopla and sexy new features people have been lusting over in the CTPs for months. It's always great to see the hype around a new release. But in the circle of (an application's) life, the arrival of new things often means others are going away for good. Let's …

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I'm already at peace with the fact that I'll never know all of SQL Server's secrets, but that doesn't stop me from being surprised every time I figure out something new. In this case, it's another "secret" hiding in plain sight (Books Online). It turns out that the DROP DATABASE statement doesn't just have to …

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