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SQL Server 2025 Backups - New ZSTD Compression
Compression was introduced in SQL Server version 2008. While it helped, the compression ratios were frequently too low to justify the...
Aug 123 min read
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How To Call APIs From SQL Server
Calling an API has been in Azure SQL since 2022, but it was only recently added to SQL Server 2025 Preview. This new feature...
Jul 14 min read
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How To Test SQL Server Disk IO Throughput
When managing large databases or high-transactional databases, the performance of your underlying storage system is crucial, whether it...
Jun 173 min read
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Are Your Disks Lagging?
Recently, one of my clients was experiencing performance issues with their SQL Server. Although the server was not underpowered from a...
Jun 165 min read
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New Azure VMs that perform close to on-prem servers?!
Working with large databases, multi-terabyte in size, I've had clients who have wanted to move to the cloud. However, after testing and...
Jun 122 min read
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Getting Started with SQL Server 2025 Public Preview: A Step-by-Step Installation Guide
A step-by-step guide to installing SQL Server 2025 Private Preview.
Jun 44 min read
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Uninstall PolyBase from SQL Server
If you have SQL Server 2019 or SQL Server 2022 installed with PolyBase and you try to install SQL Server 2025, it will fail during...
May 231 min read
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SQL Server Autogrowth Settings Changes
Today, I want to discuss a topic that has been a bit of a headache for database administrators and consultants: the changes to SQL...
Feb 1, 20242 min read
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Testing Microsoft Fabric - Part 4
After several discussions with the Microsoft team and chatting with Sunil Sabat about the testing I was conducting, the conclusion was...
Jan 3, 20241 min read
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Testing Microsoft Fabric - Part 2
To quickly summarize where we are, we started testing Microsoft Fabric with a 10GB tar file, which took over 20 hours to extract, and now...
Nov 24, 20232 min read
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Data Types - Does size really matter? - nvarchar vs. varchar
How many of us have created a new table and used the default and first data type nvarchar for all of the text/alphanumeric fields, or had...
Aug 18, 20233 min read
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Disable Activity is Finally Available in Azure Data Factory!
Since I first used Azure Data Factory, I looked for the 'disable' option on an activity, and it wasn't there! I quickly went to the ideas...
Aug 2, 20232 min read
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Have You Reviewed Your Azure Storage Bill Lately?
At the end of 2021, I started using the new SFTP preview feature on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2. It was a great new addition to the...
Jun 16, 20232 min read
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Max Degree of Parallelism - Does it Matter?
Recently I encountered a Microsoft SQL Server with relatively high and very consistent CPU usage with few peaks and valleys. When...
Nov 18, 20211 min read
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SQL Cluster Issues with Storage Spaces Direct - (S2D)
Bottom line? Don't use it! At least don't use it for a SQL cluster directly. Recently I stumbled on a configuration using S2D (Storage...
Jul 12, 20213 min read
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Trace Flag 1117 and SQL Server 2019
For VLDBs I've always created multiple files for each file group and had to set the trace flag 1117 on to ensure that all files grow at...
Apr 13, 20212 min read
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