Not Just an Upgrade

Posted on March 9, 2026 by way0utwest

Upgrading my database server and moving from version 6 to version 7 because of a support cycle has always felt a little funny to me. In many cases, I’ve had systems that were running smoothly and performing as needed. If people were complaining, often this was because of a lack of resources, where we needed more hardware. In other cases, this was a lack of quality code, often from other developers who were unwilling to change their approach. In neither case was an upgrade likely to change anything.

However, an upgrade can be more than just buying new license and accessing new features. I was reminded up this by John Sterrett, with a post on how he talks to CEOs about upgrades. The upgrade isn’t just a new database server. It’s a chance to re-evaluate the system and consider something besides the application.

In the list, John looks at this as a cost, security, and compliance decision. These days, Standard might be a better fit than Enterprise and can save on licensing. Better security can lower risk and potentially prevent issues. Being out of support, which is going to happen 3 times in the next 3 years, can be an issue for some companies. New features might reduce the costs of maintaining existing systems.

I don’t know that this list would have made a lot of sense in the 2000-2005 timeframe, or even in the 2008-2014 range, but it might now. There are considerations beyond just the license cost. Certainly I’d be re-examining my Standard v Enterprise choice in many situations and perhaps using this argument as a reason to press developers to learn to better structure their data models and write better queries. Lowering the resource usage can lower costs. Even archival might be something I’d press on, as less data is less data to query, and honestly, are those old records in tables truly adding value?

Or are they muddying the waters of analysis?

Better security matters, and I do think modern auth systems are better, but often this might require a security change in other parts of the org, and still might require application redesign to account for a directory authenticating users. That might be entail its own costs and not be worth effort.

I don’t think upgrades should be automatic, and I am a fan of running a database server for ten years, but I also think that running one for 20 years might be a bad idea. Upgrades ought to be approached with the rational, logical view that this is an opportunity for us, but one that we might choose to take advantage of or pass on.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

Posted in Editorial | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Monday Monitor Tips: AI Query Analysis

Posted on March 9, 2026 by way0utwest

AI is everywhere. It’s in the news, it’s being added to every product, management wants everyone to be more productive with AI.

Redgate Monitor isn’t immune from this wave. We have spent a lot of time over the last year trying to learn about AI tech, experiment with it, and find ways that it provides values to customers, not just becomes a marketing label.

The big area is query analysis, though this wasn’t the first area. I’ll discuss another area in a different post, but this one looks at AI assisted query analysis.

This feature is a part of Redgate Monitor Standard, which hopefully gives many of you confidence that we haven’t abandoned this edition for the Enterprise one. We still haves teams working on features for everyone in Redgate Monitor.

This is part of a series of posts on Redgate Monitor. Click to see the other posts.

Getting Help with Queries

If you find a problem area on your server and scroll down to look at queries, you can expend the query details with the arrow on the left. When you do this, you see something like this:

2026-02_0179

Lots of these details are familiar, but the AI sparkle and purple button is new. It says “Analyze Query” and what this does is send some query details and context to an AI LLM that Redgate runs in AWS for analysis.

When you click this, it takes a few seconds and then a response from the AI LLM comes back. You get a summary, which in this case tries to look at the query, infer some intent and then use details from the query to give a quick view of what this query is doing. You can see this in the image below.

2026-02_0180

Below this, we give a performance analysis. In this case, we get the state and some observations about how this query plan looks. In this case, we see estimates of cost and rows, parallelism, etc. and then that this is a system function, there are implicit conversions, and large rows.

The section below this has recommendations. These are guesses at things that might help improve performance. In this case, there aren’t a lot of items, but some of these can help, like the implicit conversions.

2026-02_0181

Here is another plan, in this case, there are three items noted from the query. There is some detail and ordering. The implicit conversions here are critical as these can dramatically slow the query. The second item, noting over 1 million rows, is another thing to look at and lastly, SELECT *.

2026-02_0182

Below this are positives and action items. You shouldn’t blindly follow these items, but rather evaluate and test if they make a difference. In this case, these would help.

2026-02_0183

We try to intelligently pass through context to the AI LLM, but we are not custom training LLMs. We are hosting the models, so no data is being saved. We send context, get a response, and then that session closes with none of your data kept. You can read more in our AI FAQ.

Note the upper right corner of the first image, where we tell you that this content might have mistakes and you should check. You can also click thumbs up/down and provide feedback if you wish.

Summary

This post looks at the AI query analysis, which is in preview as of Feb 2026. This is intended to help you more quickly analyze what’s happening on your servers. This should help your team have a consistent view of what is going on and help share knowledge among team members.

If you find issues, or value, in this feature, please send us feedback as we are looking to improve this feature over time.

If you have feedback, please let us know as we value your opinions and comments on how we shape the future of Redgate Monitor.

Redgate Monitor is a world class monitoring solution for your database estate. Download a trial today and see how it can help you manage your estate more efficiently.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Writing as an Art and a Job

Posted on March 6, 2026 by way0utwest

I remember listening to an interview with Rick Reilly in the mid 2000s. He was the back page columnist for Sports Illustrated for years as well as a writer in various pieces. He talked about how he would lay on the couch in his office sometimes, trying to think of what to write. His kids would come in looking for attention, but couldn’t understand that Dad was “working”.

I had been writing the editorials at SQL Server Central and I could relate. Moving from 2 to 5 (eventually 6) editorials a week was a lot of work. It was stressful in a way I couldn’t imagine when I started writing them. I quickly realized that if I had to produce a new one every day, I was in trouble. There would be days I’d struggle. I needed to have a queue of pieces at least partially ready if I were going to manage this job and find balance with my family.

Recently I was listening to an interview with Lee Child, who writes the Jack Reacher series. He said that writing is both a creative endeavor and a job. It requires some inspiration and time, but it also requires you to buckle down and get to work. This is an area where delays are inevitable (everyone gets writer’s block) and if you aren’t thinking ahead delays will occur. Delays aren’t great for newspapers or other scheduled events.

SQL Server Central became a newspaper.

One of the things I did early on was start to enhance my powers of observation. There’s no magic here; it’s really a habit to look at things in your life in a different way. For me, this meant considering each question posted on the forums, each bug reported in SQL Server, each complaint/criticism/success through the lens of both telling a story and generalizing the wider issue.

I learned to write about what I experienced by seeing the experience as a source of inspiration.

I started keeping notes. First in a text file, then OneNote, then Evernote, and today, Joplin. As I would see something interesting in the world, I’d make a note, copy a URL, write a sentence or two. I then regularly go back and flesh out these ideas and add to them. It’s similar to the recommendations I make for blogging: make notes, expand those later.

The job part of this was making time to write on a regular basis. I used to try and write every day. I had some success, but I also learned some days I struggle to articulate my thoughts. Rather than struggle, I learned to just abandon the effort and go do other work, or sometimes, go to the gym or get away.

The flip side of that is that when I feel the writing is flowing, I write more. I don’t stop after one editorial (or blog) and I’ll try to tackle another one or two. If I struggle with one topic, I may find another easier, so I flip through notes and keep trying to get another one when I am in the mood to write. I sometimes find I can write 3 or 4 in a day and then not do much writing for another few days.

Many of you reading this do technical work. You work on systems, or in code, or both. However, the world is changing. I started this piece with the 25th anniversary of SQL Server Central in mind, but really, AI is front of mind. I’ve had 3 conversations today about AI stuff, and the one thing that stands out is communication and clearly expressing yourself if crucial to getting AI to work well for you.

Learn to write better. It helps in your communications with humans and with AI LLMs.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

Posted in Editorial | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Book of Redgate: Mistakes

Posted on March 6, 2026 by way0utwest

This is kind of a funny page to look at.

2026-01_0144

The next page has more detail. This is the text from the facing page:

What we do is very difficult, the current situation is hard to understand ,and the future is uncertain. Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of attempting to get the right stuff done. Unless we can make mistakes visible both individually and collectively ,we will be doomed to mediocrity.

One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about being at Redgate is that we try stuff and we sometimes fail. We talk about those issues in engineering and we do a decent job of an RCA and retrospective that we publish publicly (internally). I like that. Not every group does this, but many do, and lots of groups have influenced others to start or get better.

We’re not perfect, and we know it. However, we are striving to accept those imperfections in others, even as we try to improve.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment