xp_cmdshell is an extended SQL stored proc that allows users to run Windows command prompt commands from within SQL. Sound scary? It might, but is xp_cmdshell really a security...
2023-04-26 (first published: 2023-04-12)
582 reads
SQL doesn’t really give us too many tools out of the box to allow us to spot when someone may be up to no good. We can look at...
2023-04-12 (first published: 2023-03-29)
548 reads
The question of encryption seems to be coming up a lot recently. I’ve had a number of people asking me about how to go about encrypting SQL Server. SQL...
2023-01-25 (first published: 2023-01-17)
445 reads
Here’s a quick one for today and is an issue that had me stumped for a while. It’s not one that I’d come across before and there isn’t really...
2022-11-28 (first published: 2022-11-16)
346 reads
This was an interesting question that I was asked yesterday and something that I’d never really thought of before. Can you delete the top x number of rows based...
2022-09-30 (first published: 2022-09-15)
922 reads
Have you ever had the need to attach a large number of database in one go? There’s no way to attach multiple databases in SSMS or via script, so...
2022-08-24 (first published: 2022-08-15)
304 reads
Sometimes I find remembering where a particular server sends its backups to a nightmare. You might have servers backing up to different locations, you might have different locations for...
2022-06-16
33 reads
Imagine that we’re seeing very heavy load on our SQL server, be it CPU or IO and we need to find out which database is the driver. I’m sure...
2022-05-11 (first published: 2022-05-03)
1,095 reads
I’m going to assume that most people will have at least heard of Brent Ozar’s brilliant First Responder Kit. If you haven’t then you’ve been missing out on some...
2022-02-09
109 reads
Spinlock contention is always a real headache to deal with. I recently saw an issue when spinlock contention on SOS_CACHESTORE was making the server virtually unresponsive. The issue was...
2021-11-15 (first published: 2021-11-03)
305 reads
By Vinay Thakur
it has been a year since i have not written much on the blog...
By Steve Jones
on tenderhooks – adj. feeling the primal satisfaction of being needed by someone, which...
By DataOnWheels
I have been active in the data community throughout my career. I have met...
I have a quick question on Ola Hallengren Index Optimize Maintenance . Do we...
hi, in an ssis for each loop over an object variable called MyListVariable, i...
SQL Server is typically viewed as a transactional or analytical database engine. However, it...
On SQL Server 2025, when I run this, what is returned?
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY('SQL Server', 'MySQL') See possible answers