Ready-to-run T-SQL scripts, PowerShell tools, utilities, and downloadable advisors for SQL Server DBAs.
SQL Server Security Model 2026: Least Privilege, Roles, and Authentication Best Practices – SQLYARD Leave a Comment / Articles / By SQLYARD SQL Server Security Model 2026: Building a Least-Privilege Architecture That Scales By David Yard · SQLYARD.com · April 2026 · Estimated read: 20–25 min Table of Contents Core Security Principles What Changed in […]
A Complete Playbook for Modern DBAs SQL Server health checks are one of the few things that never go away in a DBA’s career. It does not matter if you inherit a system, support a system that has been running for years, or walk into a new environment where the last DBA left suddenly. Someone
The Ultimate SQL Server 2019 and 2022 Health Check Guide Read More »
SQL Server 2025 focuses on something DBAs value more than any new feature: stability. Instead of introducing shiny tools, Microsoft enhanced the core engine areas that generate the most operational noise. If you manage production SQL Servers today, almost every improvement in this release makes your environment more predictable and far less reactive. This article
SQL Server 2025: The Release That Finally Reduces Firefighting for DBAs Read More »
Introduction Power BI has evolved from a self service reporting tool into a full enterprise analytics engine. The biggest shift in this evolution is the introduction of Fabric Semantic Models, which extend and modernize the classic Power BI dataset. When combined with Power BI Premium and the new Fabric architecture, semantic models now act as
SQL Server 2025 (17.x) is the first release in a long time that feels like more than “2022 with patches.” It is aimed at AI-heavy, hybrid, and event driven workloads while still giving DBAs and developers practical wins around JSON, performance, security, and HA. At the time of writing, SQL Server 2025 is still in
SQL Server 2025: New Features You Actually Need To Care About Read More »
How to Be an Azure SQL DBA: Skills, Practices, and a Hands-On Workshop – SQLYARD Leave a Comment / Articles, Azure, Scripts / By SQLYARD How to Be an Azure SQL DBA: Skills, Practices, and a Hands-On Workshop By David Yard · SQLYARD.com · April 2026 · Estimated read: 35–40 min Table of Contents The
How to Be an Azure SQL DBA: Skills, Practices, And A Hands On Workshop Read More »
By SQLYard.com | November 2025 Introduction Memory grants are one of the most critical — and often overlooked — parts of SQL Server performance tuning. When a query requests more memory than it needs, concurrency drops. When it asks for too little, spills to tempdb occur. With SQL Server 2025, Microsoft introduced improvements to query
SQL Query Memory Consumption in SQL Server 2025 Read More »
Modern SQL Server development isn’t just about writing SELECT * statements anymore. As systems grow and performance expectations rise, understanding how T-SQL functions, ranking queries, and triggers behave under the hood becomes essential. In this post, we’ll walk through some fundamental and advanced concepts that every database professional should master: 1. Learn T-SQL Inline Table-Valued
Leveling Up Your T-SQL Game: UDFs, Row_Number Performance, Triggers & Real DBA Lessons Read More »
Python has become the “second keyboard” for database people. Whether you manage SQL Server or Postgres on-prem, or you move data across Azure and AWS, Python sits in the middle: connecting to databases, transforming data, orchestrating jobs, testing pipelines, and even powering serverless tasks. This guide explains where Python fits, why it’s worth your time,
APIs are how modern systems talk to each other. As a DBA or data engineer, you’ll run into two common needs: This guide shows you both. We’ll cover JSON basics in T-SQL, version-specific options like sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint, safe fallbacks (CLR, PowerShell, SSIS), and how to front SQL Server with a proper Web API and an API
SQL Server + APIs: a complete guide for DBAs and data engineers Read More »
Introduction DBCC CHECKDB is one of the most critical commands in a SQL Server DBA’s toolkit. It verifies the logical and physical integrity of all the objects in a database, helping you catch corruption early—before it turns into a recovery nightmare. In modern versions like SQL Server 2022, data purity checks are built in by
DBCC CHECKDB: Practical Integrity Checking for Large SQL Server Databases Read More »
Introduction For years, relational databases like SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL have been the backbone of data analytics. But as organizations began collecting petabytes of data, it became clear that data warehouses alone couldn’t scale efficiently or flexibly. That’s where the data lakehouse emerged—a modern architecture that combines the best of both worlds: the low-cost,
🧊 From SQL to PySpark: A Complete Guide to Apache Iceberg Tables (Novice to Expert) Read More »
Introduction Transact-SQL (T-SQL) is Microsoft’s extension of the SQL language and the backbone of Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. It powers querying, data manipulation, schema definition, and business logic. Whether you’re building analytics dashboards, powering web applications, or managing large-scale data systems, T-SQL is an essential skill. This guide is designed to take
T-SQL Fundamentals: Everything You Need to Know to Go from Beginner to Pro Read More »
What is Table Partitioning (in SQL Server)? Table partitioning (sometimes called horizontal partitioning) means splitting a large table (or its index) into multiple smaller “chunks” (partitions) along a partitioning key, typically a date or numeric column. Each partition holds a slice of the data range. The database engine handles it as a single logical table,
Introduction The world of data infrastructure is evolving quickly. Modern systems aren’t just about storing and querying data anymore — they’re expected to scale globally, stay online 24/7, and integrate seamlessly with DevOps pipelines. This shift has created a new discipline at the intersection of database administration, reliability engineering, and DevOps: Database Reliability Engineering (DBRE).
SQL Server SPNs and Kerberos: A Practical, End-to-End Guide — 2026 Update Leave a Comment / Articles, Operations, PowerShell, Scripts and Tools / By SQLYARD SQL Server SPNs and Kerberos: A Practical, End-to-End Guide — 2026 Update By SQLYARD · SQLYARD.com · Updated August 2026 · Estimated read: 20–24 min SQL Server 2016 through 2025
SQL Server SPNs and Kerberos: A Practical, End-to-End Guide — 2026 Update Read More »
Replication is a powerful SQL Server feature for distributing data across multiple servers. But one of the most common issues DBAs face is undelivered distribution commands — commands sitting in the distribution database waiting to be delivered to subscribers. Left unchecked, they can grow into replication latency, subscriber lag, and even system instability. In this
Monitoring Undelivered Distribution Commands in SQL Server Replication Read More »
Summary The Dedicated Administrator Connection is a back-door lifeline for SQL Server. When the instance is too stressed to accept normal connections, a sysadmin can still connect over the DAC to run lightweight diagnostics and fix problems. You can connect with sqlcmd -A or by using the ADMIN: prefix in SSMS. By default, only local
If you’ve ever watched a big index crawl for hours, you know why people love parallel index creation. Letting SQL Server use multiple CPU cores can cut build time dramatically. But it’s not always the right choice, and it can bite you on a busy server. This guide gives you a practical decision framework, monitoring
Summary If your FK report “misses” constraints, it’s not statistics. FK metadata lives in system catalogs and shows up regardless of ANALYZE. The usual culprits are schema filters, case sensitivity, partitions, NOT VALID constraints, permissions, or just being in the wrong place you expected. Below are dependable queries for Postgres and SQL Server, plus a
Find Every Foreign Key in Postgres and SQL Server (and why some “go missing”) Read More »
