Steven Naudet

Step-by-Step Guide to Enabling Copilot in SSMS

With the latest version of SSMS, SSMS 21, there is now integration with Copilot. In this blog post, we’ll go through the setup step by step, with screenshots, to get everything ready to use Copilot in SSMS.There is already(…)

Experiencing SQLBits 2025 in London

This week, I’m in London attending the SQLBits 2025 conference.Since joining dbi services as a consultant, this is my second time taking part in the event. The last time was in 2022, but I attended remotely due to the(…)

SQL Server 2025 Public Preview and SSMS 21 now available

This is a short blog post to share that the SQL Server 2025 public preview is now available for download. At the same time, SSMS 21 has also been released and is now generally available. The LinkedIn post by Bob(…)

Plotting SQL Server Performance counters with Python

As a consultant, I often use Performance Monitor (Perfmon) to collect performance metrics for SQL Server. After running Perfmon for, say, a week to capture a baseline of server activity, you can end up with a(…)

Attending SQLDay 2024 in Wrocław, Poland

Here’s a short post about a conference I’m attending right now. SQLDay is one of the biggest events in Europe dedicated to the Microsoft data platform, including databases, Big Data and Business Intelligence solutions, and advanced data analytics. The(…)

SQL Server: Is this ad hoc workload an issue?

I ran into an interesting scenario with a customer that I want to share in this blog post.This customer is running a data-loading activity on a monthly basis from his business application.He did not complain about the performance, the time(…)

SQL Server: How Correlation assumptions work for multiple predicates

SQL Server 2022 introduced “CE Feedback“, a feature that adjusts some Cardinality Estimation model assumptions at a query level by applying Query Store hints. In this blog post, I’ll use an example query from the(…)

SQL Server: Heap page deallocation and IndexOptimize

Introduction HEAP tables are a type of data structure that, unlike a clustered index table, does not have a specific ordering of its rows, making them faster to insert and delete data. They are often used for temporary “staging” tables.

SQL Server Deadlock on UPDATE with Serializable isolation level

Recently I spent some time on a recurring Deadlock problem on a customer’s site in a high concurrency environment. It was only after finding the solution on my own that I discovered that this particular problem is already well documented(…)

First look at SQL Server 2022 Contained Availability Groups

Introduction SQL Server 2022 introduces the new concept of Contained Availability Groups. This is something that DBAs have been waiting for since Availability Groups were introduced 10 years ago. Contained Availability Groups enhance the Availability groups by providing the(…)