Part of the problem is that there is no magic bullet, and for almost every best practice, I can show you at least one exception. Typically, a developer finds his or her own favorite methods — though ...

A common task that all database and system administrators face is patching systems. Patching your systems is very important -- first and foremost, security fixes are included in patches. Patches also ...

When it comes to improving the performance of database systems, there are nearly as many approaches as there are DBA (database administrator) teams. That might sound acceptable at first glance. But, ...

A common SQL habit is to use SELECT * on a query, because it’s tedious to list all the columns you need. Plus, sometimes those columns may change over time, so why not just do things the easy way? But ...

An update to the cardinality estimator feature in SQL Server 2022 will be one of the biggest changes to the database engine since its inception. Database engines like SQL Server are incredibly complex ...

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m not a DBA, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t overseen databases and their performance. I was (and probably still am) the guy who installed a Microsoft SQL database by hitting Next ...