by Ken Haff | Oct 21, 2025 | Blog, Database, SQL Server
SUMMARY: Database Administrators (DBAs) must acknowledge that relying on common third-party backup solutions severely compromises data integrity, point-in-time recovery (PITR) capabilities, and recovery objectives (RPO/RTO) due to fundamental flaws like resource...
by Ken Haff | Oct 7, 2025 | Blog, Database, Microsoft
SUMMARY: An experienced SQL Server DBA can leverage an AI assistant as a co-pilot to significantly boost efficiency by offloading complex, messy, and time-consuming tasks, thereby acting as a powerful partner for advanced database administration. AI can successfully...
by Ken Haff | Jul 2, 2025 | Blog, SQL Server
SUMMARY: A database administrator faced a critical performance collapse during a multi-day data transfer of over 8.6 billion rows in SQL Server because the Query Optimizer, despite the presence of a clustered index, repeatedly forced an inefficient parallel Sort...
by Ken Haff | Jun 25, 2025 | Blog, Microsoft, SQL Server
SUMMARY: Database professionals facing surprisingly slow SELECT MAX() queries on massive SQL Server tables can eliminate costly billion-row Clustered Index Scans by intentionally introducing a non-partitioned Non-Clustered Index to provide the query optimizer a...
by Ken Haff | Dec 10, 2024 | Blog, SQL Server
EagerZero vs. Quick Format: A Comparison When it comes to formatting drives, there are different methods available, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Two common methods are EagerZero and Quick Format. Here’s how they compare: EagerZero...
by Ken Haff | Sep 24, 2024 | Blog, SQL Server
In SQL Server, the network packet size setting plays a crucial role in determining the data transfer efficiency between the server and clients. This deep dive explores the technical aspects of configuring the network packet size, including how TDS packets are wrapped...
