How to monitor the impact of patching on SQL Server performance

This article uses the Spectre/Meltdown bugs as means to demonstrate how you can use a tool like SQL Monitor to assess the impact of patching on the throughput and performance of your SQL Servers. Read more

How to use the SQL Prompt snippet placeholders for selecting and copying text

Phil Factor demonstrates the power of placeholders in SQL Prompt Snippets, for selecting and copying text. They make it very easy to build queries by dragging-and-dropping from the SSMS object explorer, and also to save queries as reusable views or inline table valued functions. Read more

Realistic, simulated data for testing, development and prototypes

Generating realistic test data is a challenging task, made even more complex if you need to generate that data in different formats, for the different database technologies in use within your organization. Dave Poole proposes a solution that uses SQL Data Generator as a ‘data generation and translation’ tool. Read more

Finding code smells using SQL Prompt: the SET NOCOUNT problem (PE008 and PE009)

Generally, you should prevent rowcount messages being sent, by adding a SET NOCOUNT ON at the start of every stored procedure, trigger and dynamically executed batch. Phil Factor demonstrates, and explains the nuances and exceptions. Read more

Finding code smells using SQL Prompt: old-style join syntax (ST001)

There are no advantages to using old-style join syntax. If SQL prompt identifies its use in legacy code, then rewriting the statements to use ANSI-standard join syntax will simplify and improve the code. Read more

How to automatically provision sanitized data using SQL Clone, Data Masker and PowerShell

Chris Unwin describes a strategy, using data masking, cloned databases and PowerShell, which will allow you to sanitize data before provisioning test or development environments. Read more

Finding code smells using SQL Prompt: procedures that lack schema-qualification (PE001)

SQL Prompt will warn you if it spots use of EXECUTE, without specifying the schema in which the stored procedure resides, because it can cause slower execution times, or even result in running of the wrong procedure. Read more

How SQL Monitor Monitors Azure-based SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances

Jon Hayman shows you how to set up SQL Monitor to monitor Azure-based clustered SQL Server instances right alongside your on-premise clusters. Read more

How to Customize Schema Comparisons using Auto Map in SQL Compare

How the table automapping feature works in SQL Compare, and how to control its behavior. Read more

SQL Prompt Hidden Gem: Auto-fill the GROUP BY clause

Writing GROUP BY clauses is a very common, but tedious, activity for a SQL programmer. SQL Prompt will fill it in for you, with all non-aggregated columns returned by the query. Read more

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