Shows / Voice of the DBA
Episodes
- Voice of the DBA
Republish: Going Big with SSDs
Let’s look back. This editorial was originally published on Aug 16, 2011, when SSDs weren’t as common as they are now. Can you even buy hard drives? What do…
- Voice of the DBA
A Worse Computer; A Better Car
A few weeks ago, my wife and I purchased a Lucid Gravity for our second EV. We’ve owned a Tesla for almost five years, and it has been an amazing car…
- Voice of the DBA
The Fringe Festival
I was lucky enough to take a vacation a decade ago in Edinburgh with my wife. She came over to the UK with me for a quick trip. We had never been to Scotland…
- Voice of the DBA
Building Great Software
Most of us will work on software for our organization, and we might not want to or care about the end result being great. We do want it to work, and we want…
- Voice of the DBA
Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger
Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL Server Central: Getting the Average. Isn’t is slower? A fair question. This quick post…
- Voice of the DBA
T-SQL Tuesday #201: Temp Tables
This month we have a new host, which I am grateful for. So many people have stopped blogging that it’s a challenge to keep this going. Jeff Taylor has an…
- Voice of the DBA
Imagine the Physical World
Brent Ozar has a series of database animations posts, where he tries to explain what work is done by SQL Server during certain operations, such as Index Seeks…
- Voice of the DBA
Don’t Fight with AI
I was recently trying to handle a simple task with a few AI tools to see how well things worked. I realized that AI isn’t great for everything and there are…
- Voice of the DBA
Architecting Zero Downtime Deployment Resources–Albany Day of Data
Thanks to those who attended my session at Day of Data Albany 2026. I’m posting this to help you find the resources from the talk. Slides…
- Voice of the DBA
The Quiet Part
Apparently, Meta did what a lot of employees suspect their management will do: use AI to lay off people. In this case, there is a report (and lawsuit) that…
- Voice of the DBA
Car Update: August 2026
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to showcase a few things I’ve learned about my cars since the last one. In this post: A Second…
- Voice of the DBA
Are You Working More Hours?
Recently, I noticed my son was coming home later and going to work earlier. He typically works a 9/80 schedule as a software engineer, but at times he might…
- Voice of the DBA
TRY_PARSE Limitations: #SQLNewBlogger
I got a notification from a question I’d posted at SQL Server Central: Getting the Average. A user had posted their repro didn’t work, with no real comment. As…
- Voice of the DBA
Finding Bad Queries
T-SQL Tuesday #200 was in July, hosted by Brent Ozar, and it was a great topic: How do you recognize a bad query? In the age of AI, when lots of people will…
- Voice of the DBA
Monday Monitor Tips: The MCP Server
I have been experimenting with MCP servers in a few ways, and pressing on our Redgate Monitor team to add one to their system. They did, started adding tools…
- Voice of the DBA
Fixing P1 Queries
When we look at the performance of software, we use Pnn notation to indicate the latency of an issue. A P95 problem is one that exceeds the time that 95% of…
- Voice of the DBA
A New Word: Mauerbauertraurigkeit
mauerbauertraurigkeit – n. inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company you generally enjoy, like a poker player who keeps folding a…
- Voice of the DBA
Building Your Own Software
Lots of AI usage has been spent inside companies on building new software. Sometimes people are trying to rebuild existing software. I’ve seen more than…
- Voice of the DBA
Adding an HTTP MCP Server to VSCode
I wrote earlier this week about the SQL MCP Server using the Data API Builder. In that post I showed how to query the MCP server from VSCode, but I didn’t…
- Voice of the DBA
Make It Routine
The first one is hard. The rest are boring. I heard this statement from someone recently, and it sounds like something a technical person would do. It’s…
- Voice of the DBA
Getting the SQL Server MCP Server Running
If you’ve wanted a SQL Server MCP server for your databases, it’s available. The SQL MCP Server is a part of the Data API Builder (DAB). DAB is a wrapper that…
- Voice of the DBA
Another Model, More Data Loss
This past week I saw an article on eWeek that the newest OpenAI GPT-5.6 (Sol) model has deleted local files and live data. Files I’m less worried about…
- Voice of the DBA
Advice I Like: Responsibility
“The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.” – from Excellent Advice for Living I’ve worked…
- Voice of the DBA
What is CPU Usage?
I had a request from a customer recently who asked if we could give them a report of their database server instances and include CPU usage. This request was…
- Voice of the DBA
AI Experiments: Claude Solved a DAB Issue
I’m sure many of you are using AI regularly, perhaps chatting, perhaps using some sort of agent. I’m doing the same, but in this case, I had it tackle an issue…
- Voice of the DBA
Republish: IT Staffer Fired
It’s a great title, and it’s one many people have worried about in their careers. I know I have, and I decided to re-run IT Staffer Fired today. Leave me your…
- Voice of the DBA
A Flex Holiday
I’m taking a holiday today, enjoying New Orleans with my wife after a fun Saturday at Day of Data Baton Rouge. It’s always a great event and one I…
- Voice of the DBA
Day of Data Baton Rouge Slides and Code
Thanks to everyone for attending my talk today at Day of data Baton Rouge 2026 (formerly SQL Saturday Baton Rouge). The slides are here: Building an API with…
- Voice of the DBA
The SQL Server 2016 Plan
SQL Server 2016 went out of support this week, on Jul 14, 2026. This is the end of the Extended support, according to the Support Lifecycle page. Microsoft…
- Voice of the DBA
The Mythical Bus Accident
What if I got hit by a bus? I’m sure many of you have heard some variation of this, or used it, or maybe your boss told you to be ready in case you (or…
- Voice of the DBA
Moving on from Tesla
We decided to sell our Tesla Model Y. It’s been almost 5 years, and it’s (still) an amazing car. My wife, however, wants something more luxurious. As cool of a…
- Voice of the DBA
The Book of Redgate: Products
We are product focused at Redgate Software. Here is another of our values that focused on this: The text on the next page is: Shipping something amazing is…
- Voice of the DBA
A Security and AI Fail
The AI boom is still growing like crazy. Many organizations are trying to learn how they can use AI to improve operations and become more efficient at a…