Azure SQL automatic index compaction: lower your fill factor under continuous inserts
Does Azure SQL automatic index compaction fix UUIDv7 page density? Yes after a load, but with continuous inserts it needs a fill factor below 100.
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SQL Server: Automatic index compaction in Azure (preview) – Part 2
Why does index fragmentation matter less than before ? Logical fragmentation was a problem on spinning disks: an ordered scan on a fragmented index broke the read-ahead into smaller I/Os and each jump cost a disk head movement. On SSD, NVMe and cloud storage, the penalty of non-sequential reads is marginal. And the “physical order” we used to restore so…
SQL Server: Automatic index compaction in Azure (preview) – Part 1
For years, we have all scheduled the same thing on our SQL Server environments: a nightly or weekly index maintenance job. We check the fragmentation level, we run a REORGANIZE between 5% and 30%, a REBUILD above 30% and we hope the job finishes before the business day starts. Microsoft recently released a new feature in public preview: automatic index…
Azure Bootcamp Switzerland 2026 edition
Today I attended the Azure Bootcamp Switzerland event in Bern. Here is a summary of what I saw and what I learned in the sessions. The opening keynote was about Azure Sovereign Architecture where the presenter gave us an update on the current Azure/Microsoft projects. We also had an explanation on how sovereignty works. Then I joined a session titled…
Deploying Azure Terraform code with Azure DevOps and a storage account as remote backend
Why this blog? While I was working for a customer, I was tasked to create an Azure infrastructure, using Terraform and Azure DevOps (ADO). I thought about doing it like I usually do with GitLab but it wasn’t possible with ADO as it doesn’t store the state file itself. Instead I have to use an Azure Storage Account. I configured…
SQL Server’s LinkedIn Posts catch-up!
You may not have followed all my posts this summer about what we are doing with Microsoft SQL Server technology and the BI stack like Power BI and Azure Data Fabric. So, I thought I’d write a little catch-up blog post, to help you to find all LinkedIn Posts! First, a bit of humour with this image of SQL Server…
SQL Server: Do you know how to use SERVERPROPERTY() function in a useful way?
The SERVERPROPERTY() function is so nice to use to have information about the instance and server very quickly. Sometimes it’s good to come back to basis… How to begin? Read the documentation of course here but you will see a lot of informations… After reading the documentation, how to have the first useful information? The first information will be about…
SQL-Server 2025: Generate Data Embeddings for Semantic Search
In this Blog we will continue with our AI journey in SQL-Server 2025 preview. If you didn’t read the first Blog you’ll find it here: dbi Blog In this article, we will explore the concept of data embeddings, a key concept for modern AI-driven applications and platforms. We will then examine the latest capabilities introduced in SQL Server 2025 (preview)…
SQL Server 2025: Where Data Meets Intelligence
The evolution of AI is booming and brings many new possibilities to enhance efficiency and convenience with many different use cases. While AI chatbots have had an almost revolutionary influence in recent years, we are now entering the next phase of this evolution with context-aware AI assistants and autonomous AI agents that will have even more impact. Providers of modern…
Exploring the Future of Data at SQLBits 2025 in London
I’m looking back on three amazing days of interesting technical insights from the SQLBits event 2025 in London. It’s actually my first time having the pleasure of attending one of Europe’s biggest data platform events and I can sincerely say, that I enjoyed every minute of interesting workshops and sessions all around Data management, Data engineering and analytics with the…
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 uncertainties surrounding international travel at the time, as COVID-19 was still a concern.You can actually find the blog post I wrote…
Azure Bootcamp Switzerland 2025
Last week I attended the Azure Bootcamp Switzerland 2025 with my colleague Adrien from the Cloud team. It was the 1st time for us but it was already the 6th edition of the event. This is a community event and non-profit event on an obvious topic: Azure It’s a quite intensive day, 2 keynotes and 15 presentations split in 3…