Steve Jones

My background is I have been working with computers since I was about 12. My first "career" job in this industry was with network administration where I became the local DBA by default. I have also spent lots of time administering Netware and NT networks, developing software, managing smaller IT groups, making lots of coffee, ordering pizza for late nights, etc., etc.

I currently am the editor of SQL Server Central and an advocate/architect at Redgate Software. I am also the President of SQL Saturday, maintain the T-SQL Tuesday monthly party, and remember our colleagues at sqlmemorial.org.

You can find out more about me on my blog (www.voiceofthedba.com) or LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/way0utwest)
  • Interests: yoga, reading, biking, snowboarding, volleyball

SQLServerCentral Article

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The || Operator

I have been working in various computer languages for a long time. When I saw that the || operator was coming, I was a bit confused as to why we needed this, and how it would work. After all, this is a part of other languages. I decided to dig in a bit. This is […]

(2)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-12-19

7,958 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The UNISTR Function

I am not much for working in languages other than English. That's my native language and I know little about others. However, the last few years I find myself using emojis more and more in quick communications as they seem to add some fun to the interaction. And those interactions need to be stored in […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-12-05

262 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The PRODUCT Function

Earlier this year at SQL Saturday Austin 2025, Conor Cunningham gave a keynote that discussed the engineering efforts in the Austin office around SQL Server. One of the things he mentioned was PRODUCT(), which was written there and added to SQL Server 2025 to help with the GDP calculation for the US government. Yep, that's […]

(2)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-11-28

8,143 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

SQL Server 2022 Build List

This is a list of the builds for SQL Server 2022. There are other build lists available here. A list of all the builds that I can find and install on my Build VM. If you find a build not listed here, please let the webmaster know (webmaster at sqlservercentral.com). All builds are listed in reverse […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-11-24 (first published: )

4,336 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

SQL Server 2025 Build List

This is a list of the builds for SQL Server 2025. There are other build lists available here. A list of all the builds that I can find and install on my Build VM. If you find a build not listed here, please let the webmaster know (webmaster at sqlservercentral.com). All builds are listed in reverse […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-11-24

151 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Concatenating Strings

Like many of you, I have often put strings together (concatenation) with a simple arithmetical operator: +.  We have a few other ways to put strings together, but in SQL Server 2025, we have a new operator that allows us to put strings together. This is the double pipe (||) operator. This article looks at […]

(4)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-11-14

3,149 reads

Blogs

Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis

By

I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...

FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency

By

In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...

2025 Wrapped for Steve

By

I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

reaching ftp thru winscp but erroring in ssis ftp task connection

By stan

Hi, below i show various results trying to reach our ftp site (a globalscape...

Finding Motivation

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding Motivation

The Last Binary Value of the Year

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Last Binary Value of...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

The Last Binary Value of the Year

What does this code return?

SELECT cast(0x2025 AS NVARCHAR(20))
Image 1: Image 2: Image 3: Image 4:

See possible answers