A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Sunitha Muthukrishna has an update:
Microsoft Fabric Extension for VS Code enables users to manage Fabric items efficiently from within VS Code. We are announcing two new features for Microsoft Fabric Extension for VS Code that allow you to manage Fabric items directly within your workspace. These enhancements are based on customer feedback, and we welcome further input to improve this product.
Click through to see what’s new in the product.
Leave a CommentEven the most experienced database professionals are known to feel a little anxious when peering into an unfamiliar database. Hopefully, they inspect to see how the data is normalized and how the various tables are combined to answer complex queries. Entity Relationship Maps (ERM) provide a visual overview of how tables are related and can document the structure of the data.
Read on to see how you can do this with the DBeaver database access client.
Leave a CommentKamil Nowinski has a module for us:
In the world of Microsoft Fabric, DevOps is still maturing. Unlike Azure Data Factory (ADF), which has been around long enough to have established tooling – like the #ADFTools I developed 5 years ago – Fabric is new, broad, and complex, in a very positive way!
Microsoft Fabric integrates data engineering, warehousing, real-time analytics, and BI. With this scale, the need for solid DevOps tooling is more critical than ever.
Click through to read a little bit of the history behind the project, as well as what’s currently available. And it’s all free and open-source.
Leave a CommentIt’s been a busy few months working on scripts in my GitHub repo, including adding two new members to the family.
- sp_IndexCleanup: Easily deduplicate indexes — scripts all the changes out for you!
- sp_PerfCheck: A high-level review of performance-related settings and configurations!
Read on to see which other scripts have updates and where you can download all of Erik’s scripts.
Leave a CommentSunitha Muthukrishna takes us through a debugging exercise:
Debugging your code is important to identify issues and mitigate them when you’re working with user data functions in Microsoft Fabric. You want to make sure everything works as it should and that’s where local debugging lets you catch problems in your code without messing with the live environment. In this blog post, I will walk you through the steps to make local debugging easier and faster.
Click through to see what you’ll need, as well as the process to debug a function locally.
Leave a CommentI’ve been using it for about a month now, and I have been favorably impressed. It’s a lot better user experience than PGAdmin, has some additional features—like being able to easily export query results. Much like some of the other Azure Data solutions—you can also connect with Entra ID and navigate to your Azure resources. Beyond the basics—you can also use Copilot to chat with your database.
Click through for a demonstration of the extension.
Comments closedVlad Drumea points out a new thing to keep an eye on:
SQL Server 2025 provides ODBC sqlcmd version 17 which enforces an encrypted connection.
If you’re trying to use it to connect to instances that don’t have a CA-signed certificate or where TLS encryption was never properly configured, sqlcmd will throw the famous “certificate chain not trusted” error message:
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server : SSL Provider: The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server : Client unable to establish connection.
The proper answer to this is to get trusted certificates. The workaround is what Vlad describes, so click through for that.
Comments closedDavid Wiseman shows off an open-source product:
For T-SQL Tuesday #186, Andy Levy asks, “How do you manage and/or monitor your SQL Server Agent jobs?”
This is a great opportunity for me to discuss how DBA Dash can help monitor SQL Agent jobs. DBA Dash is a free and open-source monitoring tool for SQL Server, created by me. It’s used to monitor thousands of SQL Server instances within Trimble alone, and it’s gaining popularity in the SQL Server community.
Read on to see how the product can help if you have a series of SQL Agent jobs.
Comments closedErik Darling has a new stored procedure:
A comprehensive SQL Server performance diagnostic tool that quickly identifies configuration issues, capacity problems, and performance bottlenecks at both server and database levels.
Erik also has an introduction video on the topic.
Comments closedJeff Iannucci announces a new stored procedure:
Most database folks might know the tempdb database in SQL Server is used for temporary tables, but many folks don’t realize all the other things that use this critical system database.
It’s also used by table variables, cursors, aggregations, joins, and sorts. And by memory spills when you don’t have enough memory. And by integrity checks that you run regularly to check for corruption. And more.
Optimal performance of tempdb is vital, as it is involved constantly with all your database queries. So…is your tempdb configured and running optimally? And if it isn’t, can you tell why?
Click through to see how it works and where you can get a free copy.
Comments closed