The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular
See how security in SSAS tabular models might not work as you expect, and how you could easily fail an audit.
How a Microsoft-signed SQL Server stored procedure lets sysadmins bypass disabled xp_cmdshell
Discover how a Microsoft-signed system procedure bypasses SQL Server's disabled xp_cmdshell setting - plus detection and mitigation steps for defenders
Building a SQL Server Fleet Audit That Leadership Actually Reads
Learn how to build a report that shows the health of your database estate that your leadership will read and use.
“But NOLOCK won’t hurt me if I’m using an index!”
NOLOCK is bad and you probably shouldn't use it, but every time I mention that publicly, the pushback just keeps coming. I don't know why people so firmly believe that their situation couldn't possibly be affected by bad/random data from NOLOCK.
Take the 2027 State of the Database Landscape Survey
Share your view on the database landscape and you could win USD$500.
Split Large Queries in Athena with a Simple Modulo Trick
Learn how you might balance the load in Amazon Athena when you have large partition windows.
Today's AI
Are GenAI models getting better? Is today's model the worst one you'll use in the future? Steve has a few thoughts.
Using Friendly Names for SQL Servers via DNS
At my organization, servers have a very cryptic name or a name where you can’t immediately tell the function. For instance, Amazon is the name of the SQL Server which our SharePoint uses as a back-end and Nile is the SQL Server hosting the databases for our HR application. This isn’t intuitive and it makes upgrading the servers a challenge because we always have to go back and touch the applications
Blogs
The flight recorder: Replaying what an AI agent did on my SQL Server
By Arun Sirpal
“What exactly did it do on my server?” is the first question a DBA...
Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026
By James Serra
Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon...
Au Revoir for now
By Steve Jones
No, I’m not quitting or retiring. Just going on vacation, but I leave tonight...
Forums
Let's Talk Certifications
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Let's Talk Certifications, which is...
The Hidden Security Risks of Role Combination in SSAS Tabular
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Security Risks of...
The Empty Aggregate
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Empty Aggregate
Question of the Day
The Empty Aggregate
I have this table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerOrder] ( [OrderID] [int] NULL, [CustomerID] [int] NULL, [total] [money] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOWhat is returned from this code? (answers are for the sum and then the count)
SELECT SUM(total) AS sum,
COUNT(total) AS count
FROM dbo.CustomerOrder;
See possible answers