Voice of the DBA
A series of episodes that look at databases and the world from a data professional's viewpoint. Written and recorded by Steve Jones, editor of SQLServerCentral and The Voice of the DBA.
info_outline
Expensive CPUs
02/04/2026
Expensive CPUs
There have been a lot of features added to the SQL Server platform over the years. Several of these features let us perform functions that are beyond what a database has traditionally been designed to handle. SQL Server has had the ability to , , and in SQL Server 2025, we can . Quite a few of these features (arguably) are more application-oriented than database-oriented. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a server perform some of these functions, and there have been some very creative implementations using these features. I recently ran into , where she shows how to use the new REST endpoint feature to call an AI LLM to generate and send emails from your database server. That's creative, and it's reminiscent of the numerous examples from various experts over the years who demonstrate how these features can be used to accomplish a task. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39971400
info_outline
25 Years of SQL Server Central
02/02/2026
25 Years of SQL Server Central
The oldest article we have on the site is , by me. It's dated 2001-04-18, though I think that's a date we picked when we converted all the content from one database to another. The founders agreed sometime during Feb 2001 to jointly run SQL Server Central. Since we each owned the copyright of our articles from another site, we migrated several articles to build up our content library. This was back when , , and I all had full-time jobs and managed the site during breaks, nights, and weekends. That was 25 years ago. Twenty. Five. Years. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39889085
info_outline
There Are a Lot of Databases
01/30/2026
There Are a Lot of Databases
I was reading Andy Pavlo's . He's done this for a number of years, and there are links to previous recaps in the piece. He is at Carnegie Mellon University, working on quite a few database-related projects. In the review, he tends to track the database world from the perspective of business success and money. There are certainly parts of it that discuss technical changes, but my overall impression is more about the business and usage success than it is about the way database systems work. The main thing that struck me after reading the review was how many database systems there are in the world. I hadn't heard of any of these: RaptorDB, TigerData, Tembo, StormDB, Translattice, FerretDB, DocDB, SpiralDB, Tantivy, SkySQL, HeavyDB, and more. I'm sure I missed listing some I didn't recognize, and quite a few of these are PostgreSQL-based systems, but still, that's a lot of database systems that exist and are having success. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39888705
info_outline
More Documentation is Needed
01/28/2026
More Documentation is Needed
AI is everywhere, and if you spend any amount of time looking for answers on the Internet to your coding challenges, you've likely encountered a lot of poor, average, good, bad, amazing, and just-helpful-enough AI content. For awhile, I was avoiding the AI summary from Google as the quality seemed slightly off, but lately it's gotten good enough that I tend use it to decide which links to click on in the results. The summary helps me better understand the context Google sees in my search query. I ran across and how helpful these docs are in onboarding, code reviews, and more. The teams that worked smoothly together often had good docs that helped them function as a cohesive group. At least to some extent. Over time, teams start to depend on tools and lose some of that cohesiveness since they rely more on tools than docs. I agree with the piece that this is a part of the reason many teams don't really function as teams over time. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39888355
info_outline
Deep Learning and Craftsmanship Matter
01/26/2026
Deep Learning and Craftsmanship Matter
There's concern about the future of AI and how it may affect jobs and employment for the masses. I see plenty of people on both sides of the issue. Some are sure AI technologies won't replace people; some are concerned their jobs will be eliminated, and some are hoping that we will eliminate some jobs and create many more. Sometimes that's the same person. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39752445
info_outline
Learning From Breakage
01/21/2026
Learning From Breakage
I've had the fortunate, or maybe unfortunate, experience of being thrown into a few jobs with no training. At a couple of my bartending jobs, I had to start working without any training, calling over someone to help run the ordering machine while I made and served drinks. I managed to slowly learn how things worked throughout that first shift, so I was ready to work on my own the second night. I had a similar experience at a tech job, starting as the lead DBA/IT Manager in a crisis, having to try and solve problems after ask others how things were supposed to work. I ended up fixing a bit of code, adjusting networking, and directing others on my first day. When we have a crisis, we often learn a lot from the situation. I've been through crashed upgrades, virus breakouts, hardware failures, and more in my career. While each was stressful and often not enjoyable, I learned a lot each time and came through the incident a more capable developer/DBA/whatever. When we work through a tough time, we are often better equipped for the next time something goes wrong. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39752355
info_outline
Eight Minutes
01/16/2026
Eight Minutes
When I was at the , one of the speakers was talking about their work with AI technologies. This person uses it a lot in their day job, often to complete tasks that they would have struggled to work on in the past, mostly because of time constraints, but also a lack of resources. Sometimes this person has an idea, but doesn't want to distract themselves or others by having them work on a side project. During a recent ride in a (self-driving car), this person had their laptop out and running Claude Code. They gave it a prompt, asking it to build a small app for some data analysis. During the 8-minute ride, the agent had spit out the code, a Readme, and committed this to a git repo. Later, the speaker tried it and found it solved most of his requirements, and then did some other work on the project, as well as having Claude write more code to get something that was beyond a minimally viable app. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39630635
info_outline
JSON Has a Cost
01/14/2026
JSON Has a Cost
JSON seems to be everywhere these days. Many application developers like it across all sorts of languages, C#, JAVA, Python, and more. They use it for transferring information between systems, and are comfortable serializing hierarchical object data into JSON from text and de-serializing it back into its various elements. For those of us working in relational databases, JSON seems like a blob of information that isn't easily queried, indexed, or stored. We prefer working with a relational set of data, which brings us into conflict with software developers. We'd like them to convert their objects to a relational structure, and they'd like us to just work with JSON. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39629925
info_outline
An SSIS Upgrade
01/12/2026
An SSIS Upgrade
I came across a post recently on the Microsoft Fabric blog about ..I hadn't heard much about SSIS in SQL Server 2025, so I thought this might provide some info on the investments that Microsoft is still making in Integration Services. I've run into a few people in the past year who are still heavily invested in SSIS and run packages daily. SSIS seems to be a technology that isn't even close to dying for many organizations. The blog starts well, delving into the security investments with the change to the SqlClient and TLS 1.3, as well as supporting Strict Encryption. I don't know many people using this level of security, but it's good to have SSIS support stronger security. There is also an upgrade for SSIS packages targeting Fabric Data Warehouses if they modify their approach. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39577225
info_outline
Where Your Value Separates You from Others
01/09/2026
Where Your Value Separates You from Others
I ran across a post that discusses (via ). The main point of the post is that there is a core skill that separates senior engineers from others, which is reducing ambiguity. When a senior engineer gets an ill-defined (or ill-communicated) request, they can deliver a solid, or even great, result. When someone says "performance is poor," what do you do with that? Can you build a plan to identify the issues and solve them? Or do you expect the customer to explain what is slow and why it's slow? What metrics do they have showing things are slow? A senior engineer can ask questions to find the problem and then determine how to move forward. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39577480
info_outline
Your AI Successes
01/07/2026
Your AI Successes
Recently, I was discussing AI with a friend, and they asked me to name a great success of using AI to build software. I've tried a few things, and I've worked with customers who are using AI tech. However, most of the things I've seen built with AI are small tasks; they're utilities or quick wins that change a minor part of the software. The items tend to be tactical and focused in a narrow band of fixes, and they might save a programmer time, but I'm not seeing large-scale team improvements in productivity. Yet. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39577385
info_outline
Minimally Viable Security
01/05/2026
Minimally Viable Security
Security has been a constant concern for many IT professionals over the years. Many of us are trying to implement better security controls, and yet at the same time, we try to avoid anything that slows us down. Security clearly hasn't been a big enough concern, as we've had more than our share of SQL Injection issues. These often come about from poor practices, lack of education, and too many people not learning to adopt better habits across time. We've also had no shortage of , , and more over the years. While security (or cybersecurity) is listed as , they are quick to avoid slowing down any development or deployment of software. While it is easier to get time for patching these days, it's still not easy. There are plenty of organizations that prioritize resources spent on tasks other than patching, upgrading systems, or training developers. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39577120
info_outline
The North Star for the Year
01/02/2026
The North Star for the Year
It's the beginning of the year, and some of you likely have today off. But plenty of you are at work, moving slowly through this Friday at the start of the year—handling busywork, catching up on maintenance you've let slide, or preparing for the tasks you know will start coming Monday. At Redgate, most engineering teams work toward a North Star goal: a high-level direction that guides your various tasks. Perhaps it's growing a customer base or achieving an overarching product specification. For example (this is completely made up), one North Star might be achieving feature parity across all platforms for SQL Compare. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39477545
info_outline
Finding Motivation
12/31/2025
Finding Motivation
I ran across a tweet (are they still tweets?) on X/Twitter that was titled: . It had these items, which seem to be coming from a young person. Either a student or in their first job. Stay on your phone all day. Feel sad for no clear reason. Stop eating well and ignore your studies. Sleep super late and wake up in the afternoon. Let sadness take over everything. Always look at others' lives and feel yours isn't enough. Keep blaming yourself for the past but never try to let it go. Compare your progress with people who started years before you. Get stuck imagining outcomes instead of creating them. Keep waiting for motivation instead of building discipline. What was interesting to me is I saw people doing similar things when I was younger. Either adults with careers or fellow students. I'd change "sad" to "anger", which I saw a lot in the 80s. Replace the phone with TV, as I saw lots of people start to invest a lot of time in TV with the growth of cable and 24-hour channels in the early 80s. Eating well was less of a thing, but drinking more was a thing. However, many people stagnated, or maybe ruined, themselves in similar ways. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39373150
info_outline
The Side Job
12/29/2025
The Side Job
Most of you reading this are likely technology professionals of some sort. You might be a software developer in C# or a DBA or a manager of those teams. Maybe you're an analyst working with data and reporting. You have made this a career choice and (hopefully) are growing and learning more about your craft. I also expect that you want to continue working in the area you are now, or maybe want to move into a related area. Maybe a report writer wants to move into more warehousing/lake housing. Maybe a DBA wants to be a Reliability Engineer. You have a career and you're working in that area. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39373075
info_outline
Your Value from a Conference
12/19/2025
Your Value from a Conference
The PASS Data Community Summit 2025 was held in Seattle last month, and it was an interesting event for me. I wrote a , but a few things stood out. The event was a little smaller, with over 50% first-time attendees, but seemed to be a bit more vibrant. Perhaps people coming for the first time added something that I hadn't expected. I was a bit over-committed, so I didn't spend a lot of time in the public spaces, but things felt a little different the few times I was in the expo hall or the hallway track. I ran across on the value of conferences, and it got me thinking. What is the value that you get from attending a conference (or an event). If your employer pays you might feel that you should bring some value back to them when you return. That's the premise of the thread, and I know there are plenty of people that feel that way. However. Should you value your time and effort any less? Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39229105
info_outline
The Challenge of AI
12/17/2025
The Challenge of AI
In his book, , the CEO of Microsoft AI laid out the risks of AI tech bluntly. “These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence. They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor-replacing,” he wrote. Suleyman advocated for regulatory oversight and other government interventions, such as new taxes on autonomous systems and a universal basic income to prevent a socioeconomic collapse. This book was published before Suleyman joined Microsoft. Satya Nadella is more optimistic than his new deputy. In an interview at Microsoft headquarters, while sitting next to his human chief of staff, Nadella said that his Copilot assistants wouldn't replace his human assistant. As his chief of staff sat typing notes of the conversation on her tablet, Nadella acknowledged that AI will cause “hard displacement and changes in labor pools,” including for Microsoft. Judson Althoff, Chief Commercial Officer, said that Nadella was pressuring his team to find ways to use AI to increase revenue without adding headcount. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39362210
info_outline
Refactoring SQL Code
12/12/2025
Refactoring SQL Code
One of the things I see software developers often talking about is how they refactor code. As they touch a class, method, etc., they may take the time to refactor the code to make it cleaner, perform better, or just add some documentation. It seems that a regular part of a software developer's job is refactoring code in the codebase. That is unless they see a "don't touch this, no idea how it works" comment. There are plenty of those, and often everyone leaves that code alone. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39345830
info_outline
Investing for AI
12/10/2025
Investing for AI
The GenAI boom is growing like crazy. From hype to disasters to successes to investment to the embedding of GenAI tech into lots of products, it seems no one gets away from AI. My wife, kids, friends, they all talk about AI and alternately give me stories of huge successes or epic failures. Even those who just scroll through reels aren't immune as we see amazing things, but we can't trust them because of AI. Who knows what image/video/audio was actually recorded and what was generated. Like many of you, I think AI can be amazing. Like more of you, I think it can be a really poor partner and it produces output I can't trust. I think one of the major challenges is learning to treat an AI like a colleague whose work quality is erratic. It's not that I can't work with them and use their work, but I need to test, validate, and verify the code they give me does what I need, at some acceptable quality level. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39285255
info_outline
Your Security Checkup
12/08/2025
Your Security Checkup
Recently I saw an article on Simple Talk, , and I thought that many of these are fairly simple things. Turn off unused features, disable sa, etc. These are things that a lot of people probably ensure are in their SQL Servers builds. Though, I'm sure a lot of people don't bother. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39280625
info_outline
How Important Are Real Time Decisions?
12/05/2025
How Important Are Real Time Decisions?
Imagine a perfect world? I have an AI agent that knows my business well. It's getting real time input from sales, from customers, it makes amazing decisions. We get a large order? We need to ramp up production of our widgets. We have an order pipeline of xx widgets and we know over time that yy% will close. Let's place a larger order with a supplier overseas. The next day, we have an election and tariffs are announced on imported parts. We react immediately, cancel the order, start the process to expand a local factory. We place ads to hire workers and order equipment. Things are looking good for our business and our factory will be up and running in a few months. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39228950
info_outline
SQL Server Licensing is Simple
12/03/2025
SQL Server Licensing is Simple
Over the years I've had no shortage of licensing questions for SQL Server. At times it's felt a little crazy. Look at the . Choose EE or SE and the number of cores. Then check if you're using VMs. Oh, and consider the cloud, and which cloud you're running a workload on. It's simple right? It can seem confusing, and at times I've wished Microsoft would make it simpler. And perhaps even give us some add-ons, like adding some additional hardware capabilities (cough more RAM *cough) in SE. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39228815
info_outline
Don't Let Corner Cases Drive Your Design
12/01/2025
Don't Let Corner Cases Drive Your Design
If you graph computer/query cost against the size of data, you can get four quadrants: small data, small compute (most CRUD app queries) small data, big compute (complex BI queries for this quarter, most reporting) big data, small compute (logs, audit data) big data, big compute (complex BI queries across all our data) Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39158870
info_outline
What's Your Theme Music?
11/28/2025
What's Your Theme Music?
A few weeks ago, I was at the in San Francisco. I attended the inaugural event last year and decided to go back again. It's a great chance to hear people thinking about data and its impact on the world in a different way, recognizing that building lager and larger systems isn't always possible. Or a good idea. We might find that smaller systems fit well, especially smaller datasets, which can both serve our purposes and create agility. The of the conference says that "We champion the power of Small Data and smart AI, believing that less is truly more." There's a bit more, but that's the idea. The format for the conference is a little different, with 3-5 talks in a row, all on one stage, each about 25 minutes long. These are talks with or without slides, but no live demos, just speaking and expressing a point of view. What I found fun was that each person picked their own music to play as they walked onto stage (or ran/danced in the case of from ). It was a bit of fun, with the DJ letting the music play as the person made their way to the front and were welcomed by the audience. I heard rock, metal, hip hop, and more. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984765
info_outline
Done is Better than Good
11/26/2025
Done is Better than Good
Mary Spender is a musician in the UK who I follow and hope to see live one day. She works hard producing content about music, that business, and, of course, songs. Recently she had where talked about creative time and focus. In it she referenced Elizabeth Gilbert saying "done is better than good." My initial reaction was "that's right." Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39158795
info_outline
Is Data Modeling Common?
11/24/2025
Is Data Modeling Common?
Recently, I had a few questions on database modeling. One was posted in the , and a customer asked about ERD tooling on the same day. This came shortly after Redgate acquired Vertabelo (now ). This stood out to me as very rarely in the last few years have I found people consulting and updating a diagram while performing database development. When I started as a developer and needed to update a database, I had to first update a diagram that was stored in ErWin. We had a dedicated computer (back when we went to an office every day) where the software was run and any developer could us this to update the diagram with proposed changes. Back then, we had to get another peer to sign off on changes before making them, and the peer was supposed to go check the diagram for the change before approving it. That's only if they thought your change made sense and conformed to our standards (naming, design, etc.). Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39041835
info_outline
An Unexciting Exciting Release
11/21/2025
An Unexciting Exciting Release
SQL Server 2025 was released this week. The announcement came at Ignite and the PASS Data Community Summit with keynotes on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. While there are some things to look forward to in the release (What's New) and some highlights from T-SQL Tuesday this week, it seems that this release wasn't a very exciting one. On one hand, I blame all the Microsoft Fabric focus, which seems to distract from the core product that powers the databases at many organizations. The has had relatively few posts this year, highlighting a few things. The gets more posts, which is something I've seen at Database Weekly as well. As I curate the content during my week, I find a lot more Fabric-focused content than SQL Server-specific posts. That contributes to a lack of excitement for a new version of SQL Server. Read the reset of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39041775
info_outline
Don't Create Workslop
11/17/2025
Don't Create Workslop
I remember a time before email. Some of my first jobs were mostly based on paper being moved from person to person. I'm sure some of you remember being used to communicate between individuals in an organization. I used those to send and get memorandums from others before we implemented email. Fortunately, our email implementation () came soon after I started working in corporations. Initially, people treated email much like paper mail inside organizations. However, over time, people started to treat email differently. It was easy to send an email around other work, so people started to send more messages than they ever would have with paper. They started to dash off notes quickly, sometimes too quickly, as an email might be followed by another email that includes a "I forgot this". As instant messaging grew, we saw similar patterns where people were quick to send messages, regardless of whether they were important, well-thought-out, or even necessary. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984620
info_outline
Being Mindful of Design Time
11/14/2025
Being Mindful of Design Time
Over the last few years, I've worked a lot with various customers on finding better ways to build database software, often using the principles of DevOps to drive the change. A lot of managers and leads want to see a smoother process to help their teams become more efficient. DBAs often want less overhead and friction in the process, while developers just want to deliver code. In many cases, however, what lots of management wants is speed, and they're looking for ways to increase their current speed and deliver more software. Their current rate of development might be quick enough if you can reduce your bottlenecks. Making communication easier, limiting the slowdowns from handoffs, and reducing the risk of mistakes are everyone's goals. However. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984475
info_outline
Internal Staff Growth
11/12/2025
Internal Staff Growth
Imagine that you are about to tackle a new project that will take more than a year. This might be a new system, perhaps a cloud migration, or maybe it's rewriting something that doesn't work well. You don't have enough employees to undertake the project without overloading everyone. Your team needs to grow. Would you rather hire a more senior person from outside the organization or pick a junior person that's already inside your company and teach them what they need to know? Think about this as if you were the one making the decision about the future direction of your software team. Philosophically, do you want to buy experienced people or train/build new ones from your internal staff. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38910715