Write data quality asserts in T-SQL to reject invalid staging rows, preserve check results, and record each load attempt.
Chatty Applications: Finding Many Tiny Queries per Second
Diagnose chatty applications with batch rates, cached executions, bounded session event counts, and measured round trips per user action.
Column-Level Permissions: Hiding One Column From Some Users
Apply SQL Server column-level permissions, test DENY and SELECT behavior, inspect explicit grants, and compare views with data masking.
Cross-Database Ownership Chaining: Why It Is Off and What to Use
Understand cross-database ownership chaining, inspect its scope, and use signed procedures for narrow access between SQL Server databases.
Finding Oversized Data Files With Lots of Free Space
Identify oversized data files with FILEPROPERTY, separate internal free space from disk capacity, and review one-time shrink choices.
VLF Growth Rules: How Many Virtual Log Files One Growth Adds
The VLF growth rules say how many virtual log files one log growth adds: one up to 64 MB, eight up to 1 GB, sixteen above. This post measures them on a demo database, shows a log with 68 VLFs from 1 MB steps, and repairs it by shrinking and growing once.
Log File Growth and Instant File Initialization: The 64 MB Rule
The 64 MB rule says log file growth can skip zeroing when instant file initialization is on, but only up to 64 MB. Two trace flags make the SQL Server error log show a 64 MB growth skipping the zeroing and a 65 MB growth zeroing in full. The last section says what to change.