Thom Andrews

"Database Administrator" for a small Insurance Broker in England.

I use the quotes as, being a small business, although my role is called Database Administrator, you often need to be a jack of all trades for small companies. As a result I have exposure to Network Administration, Web Development, and some server maintenance (mainly the Ubuntu servers at the office); so although I'm not trained I've had to assist enough times to know what I'm looking for or at (which greatly helps when a problem isn't SQL Server based).

SQL Server enthusiast, however, little to no experience on with any other RDBMS. Linux and Windows user, with VB.Net experience, and enjoy to dabble in PoSH and Bash. I can read C#, it is a .Net language after all, but I'm hopeless at writing it; for some reason it's always escaped my grasp. I can't even blame it on the compulsory semi-colons as (one day) they'll be compulsory in T-SQL too (bring it on SQL Server 2037!).

Blogs

Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes

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Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis

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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

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

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Forums

Database file shrink issue.

By Tac11

Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...

The North Star for the Year

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...

Multiple Escape Characters

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters

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Question of the Day

Multiple Escape Characters

In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):

SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned?

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