Latest SQLComics

SQL Corgs Explain Inner Joins

on April 15, 2024

Joins are essential. The SQL Corgs introduce you to INNER joins in this animated short.

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Awkward Unicorn Explains Database Normalization

on April 3, 2024

Why do we “normalize” relational databases, and what are the basics? Awkward Unicorn explains, with a little help from their friends.

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SQL Basics (SELECT, FROM, WHERE) with Freyja the Corgi

on April 1, 2024

Freyja the corgi shares her tips for learning SQL: SELECT, FROM, and WHERE.

Now that I’m getting the hang of this, I think I’m going to do a whole series of shorts on SQL syntax essentials, plus tips and tricks!

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Rita the Raccoon Writes SQL

on March 28, 2024

I learned to make short form videos with my drawings this week, and, well… things are about to get weirder.

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Latest blog posts

The Restore-AzSqlInstanceDatabase Long Running Operation Failed Error on Azure SQL Managed Instance

By Kendra Little on May 30, 2024

What’s it like to be a Database Administrator for managed databases in Azure? Sometimes it’s a painful guessing game when a routine, core operation– restoring a database – fails with a most unhelpful error.

In this case, if the restore is run via PowerShell, following Microsoft guidance, the error message is:

Restore-AzSqlInstanceDatabase: Long running operation failed with status ‘Failed’. Additional Info: An unexpected error occured while processing the request. [sic]

Somehow the misspelling of ‘occurred’ stings a bit more. Did anyone review the PR for this code?

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Erik Darling and Kendra Little Rate SQL Server Perf Tuning Techniques

By Kendra Little on May 20, 2024

Erik Darling joins Kendra Little to rate different SQL Server Performance Tuning Techniques in episode 81 of the Dear SQL DBA podcast. We share our opinions of… (deep breath) Recompile hints, Query Store hints and plan forcing, CTEs, Resource Governor, the legacy cardinality estimator, Table Variables, Automatic Plan Correction, Batch Mode, index rebuilds, Hekaton, NOLOCK, page compression, partitioning, filtered indexes, columnstore, join hints, PSPO, indexed hints, indexed views, optimize for unknown, RCSI, adding more memory, restarting the damn thing, scalar UDFs, and Persisted Memory Grant Feedback.

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Finally, A SQL Server Monitoring System that Leverages Query Store

By Kendra Little on May 15, 2024

I’ve spent a bit of time with Microsoft’s new database watcher tool for Azure SQL recently. There are a lot of things I like about database watcher– which is currently in preview and which refuses to Capitalize Its Name– but it does one big thing that I really, really like: it collects data from Query Store. You can access that Query Store data from built-in database watcher dashboards, query it using KQL, or (something something) in Microsoft Fabric if you’ve got money to burn on your monitoring data.

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Learn Perf Tuning in 2 Days at PASS Summit 2024 with Erik Darling and Kendra Little

By Kendra Little on May 1, 2024

I’m teaming up with Erik Darling to teach you SQL Server Performance Tuning in two days at the PASS Data Community Summit in Seattle.

Erik and I are co-teaching both days of training to give you a strong strategic background on the internals you need to know, along with critical tactical performance tuning techniques. Join us to level up your perf tuning skills!

Register Here →

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