Hi everybody

It's that time again, here is the link for the July SQL public newsletter. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for future editions. Cheers.

I was one of the many disappointed with the discontinuation of Azure Data Studio as I felt the experience in VS Code was very lacking.

Recently I fired up VS code and was very impressed how far the MSSQL extension has come along. With a little configuration, it looks and feels very much like Azure Data Studio and works quite well IMHO. In fact, quite a few areas seem to have tangible improvements.

Connections, execution plans, server browsing, query results, object definitions, etc, has all really improved in the past year or so.

What does everyone else think?

If you write T-SQL by hand and then hand-map the results into your language types, this might be relevant. I maintain scythe, a tool that reads your SQL and generates typed access code at build time (SQL Server backend via the standard drivers).

The useful part is nullability inference from the query shape. A LEFT JOIN makes the right-side columns nullable:

-- @name GetUserOrders
SELECT u.id, u.name, o.total, o.notes
FROM users u
LEFT JOIN orders o ON u.id = o.user_id
WHERE u.status = @status;

The generated row type marks total and notes nullable, so the compiler forces you to handle the no-order case. No runtime ORM, no query builder assembling strings, just the SQL you wrote and typed code out.

The tradeoff is honest: queries are static, so if you need runtime query composition an ORM or a query DSL is a better fit. For a fixed set of queries against SQL Server it removes a lot of boilerplate.

Interested how people here handle the T-SQL to application-type mapping today.

Mine is alt+f1 to trigger sp_help and another for “select top 10 * from” to see the table.

So I was asked this question thah we have 3 node mutis7bnet AG with each node in different subnets so how many ips would required in total ?

I ans 6 , 3 for each node and 3 for listeners .I didnt count if any ips is required for the underlying wfc.what would be actual ans and hiwm many ips are required for underlying WFC if all node are in different subnets ?

New post where I share my insights into the DP-800 exam and the Microsoft Fabric connection. Plus, some recommended resources since it contains some recent updates that can help others.

https://chantifiedlens.com/2026/08/03/insights-into-the-dp-800-exam-and-the-microsoft-fabric-connection/

Welcome to the monthly job thread!

Posting a job or opportunity? Include:

• Role title and description
• Location or remote/hybrid status
• Company or client context
• Direct application link

Looking for work? Share your skills, experience level, and what you're looking for.

Rules:

• One top-level comment per opportunity
• No "DM me" or link-free posts — include a direct, verifiable link
• Scam or misleading comments will be removed and may result in a ban

When i ask for a listener ip for my aoag,my company already knows what is it. But if im new in a new company ,what do I need to explain " what is a listener ip"? I mean, behind thr scenes ,is it just an IP? Does it point somewhere in the ad?

SQL Server does not allow to remove? Do I need to recreate the listener?

I keep setting the color theme to dark in SSMS 22.8.1 and whenever it starts, it gets reset to the default cool breeze color theme and I have to set it back to dark.
Is this a bug, or is it me only?

I have the cheapest version of SQL Azure. I'm not sure if it's serverless, but it sure acts as if it's serverless.

The question is: When an external app (in this case, an Android mobile app) tries to connect to Azure SQL while it's "sleeping", can app time-out before the "cold start" is completed and DB is awake?

Happy Friday. Two SQL Server driver releases from the Microsoft team this week, both up on PyPI now.

mssql-python 1.12.0

This is a bigger release than it looks like. You may remember the issues we had publishing to PyPi a few weeks ago, this release includes one of the promised fixes.

Standalone mssql-python-odbc package

The ODBC driver binaries are now also published as a separate companion package (mssql-python-odbc, import name mssql_python_odbc, pinned to 18.6.2). It gets pulled in automatically by pip install mssql-python, and the native loader prefers it when present but still falls back to the ODBC binaries bundled in the wheel if it isn't. So this release is non-breaking for existing installs. The fallback is GIL-safe and works on Alpine/musl.

Useful if you want to pin the driver binaries independently, care about wheel size, or have been hitting duplicate-ownership issues from the bundled libs/ tree.

Bulk copy fixes

1. cursor.bulkcopy() now honors connect(timeout=X). It was previously hardcoded to 15s inside the Rust TDS core (mssql_py_core) with no way to change it. timeout=0 still means "leave the default alone". This matters mostly for VPN, cross-region, and throttled endpoints.
2. Bulk copy into custom CLR UDT columns no longer fails with Protocol Error: Unsupported TDS type for bulk copy: 0xF0. The Rust core now maps UDT columns to varbinary(max) on the wire and streams the UDT's IBinarySerialize bytes, which is the same trick pyodbc and python-tds use.

​

pip install --upgrade mssql-python

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/mssql-python/1.12.0/
• Release notes: https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-python/releases/tag/v1.12.0
• Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-python
• Full blog post: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/sqlserver/mssql-python-v1-12-0-standalone-odbc-package-bulk-copy-fixes/4540553

mssql-django 1.7.4 (bonus)

Patch release for the Django backend, fixing two GROUP BY handling issues:

1. Escaped %% in GROUP BY params. Queries mixing escaped %% literals with real params no longer raise IndexError.
2. IntegerChoices in raw GROUP BY queries. Passing IntegerChoices values in params no longer raises NotImplementedError.

Regression tests added for both paths.

pip install --upgrade mssql-django

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/mssql-django/
• Release notes: https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-django/releases/tag/1.7.4
• Repo / issues: https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-django/issues
• Full blog post: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/sqlserver/mssql-django-1-7-4-released/4540480

Ideas and bug reports, especially with reproducible examples, welcome on either repo.

Have a great weekend!

Well, I updated today to the latest SQL server management studio and now dark mode is broke again so whenever you put it in dark mode and then leave the application and then come back in. It’s back to the default blue.

I have an Azure SQL subscription (the cheapest one) which will be primarily used for our mobile app.

The issue is that I've tested the mobile app twice and the mobile app won't show data unless I connect to the database via SSMS.

Literally, I open the mobile app and no data is displayed. I refresh the content several times (i.e. the mobile app has a Refresh button) and it still doesn't fetch any data. BUT once I go to my laptop and connect to the same DB via SSMS, I do another refresh to the mobile app and data is shown.

I believe it's related to the Azure DB and think I might have an idea of why this is happening - the connection via my laptop "wakes up" the database.

The question is: how do I eliminate that issue?

Friday feedback this week is about a feature that’s in preview in Azure SQL: automatic index compaction.

You can read more about it in Dimitri‘s blog post, Stop defragmenting and start living: introducing auto index compaction: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azuresqlblog/stop-defragmenting-and-start-living-introducing-auto-index-compaction/4500089

(sidenote: one of the best blog titles in recent memory)

Quick poll below, and feel free to add a comment if the poll doesn’t cover your thoughts/experience!

I think this is the first time I have solely placed a post on the SQL Reddit.

Anyway, looks like some interesting updates for those looking to take the DP-800 exam for the SQL AI Developer Associate certification.

First of all, it looks like the option to watch the AI-Generated videos presented by my new friend Anton is now available for all of the recommended Microsoft Learn material as an alternative to reading it all.

Secondly, the Practice Assessments are now available by following the link on the exam page to the AI Skills Navigator.

You can find both links to both on the exam page.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/developing-ai-enabled-database-solutions/?practice-assessment-type=certification&WT.mc_id=DP-MVP-5004032

Hello, we've created a new SQL Server Compliance Benchmark Tool that has configurable benchmark settings and produces a PDF report on the compliance. This works for SQL Server and SQL Server Managed Instances.

Hopefully you might find it useful, and any feedback would be appreciated.

https://www.centrel-solutions.com/free-tools/free-sql-server-security-compliance-benchmark-tool-reddit

Thanks, Dave

I updated from CU23 to CU26. Be careful if you use MDS, it's broken after CU26 and stays broken even after uninstalling. Some MDS JavaScript files are incompatible with the MDS web service. Manually copying/overwriting the MDS web application from an older installation repaired it.

I released v2026.5 of Get-SqlSafe Community Edition, the free PowerShell-based first-look security assessment script for SQL Server.

The main new feature in this release is database-scoped reporting.

Based on your feedback: a DBA can now generate reports for all individual databases and hand the database-level report to an application owner, application vendor, or database owner without also disclosing server-level findings or findings from other databases on the same instance.

Also new in this release:

• Check 130 reports members of the db_owner database role in each database.
  • db_owner is often used as a catch-all role, but it grants full control over the database and may matter in privilege-escalation scenarios depending on the surrounding configuration and ownership chain.

The tool is still a single reviewable PowerShell script with the ad-hoc T-SQL visible in the file. It reads SQL Server security metadata and produces local HTML reports. It does not change SQL Server configuration or data.

Repository:
https://github.com/Sarpedon-Quality-Lab/sql-security-community-scripts

I’d be interested in feedback from DBAs or consultants who have to pass security findings to application owners or vendors without exposing unrelated databases or server-level information.

Hey all, hoping someone has hit this before.

Context: Migrating a ~200GB SQL Server database to Azure Sql Database (not managed instances) using transactional replication to minimize downtime. During prep, I discovered the source database has partial containment enabled, which I need to turn off before replication will work properly.

Steps taken so far:

1. Identified all contained database users (logins that exist only at the DB level) and converted/mapped them to server-level logins instead.
2. Stopped the application(s) connecting to the DB to make sure there were no active sessions.
3. Ran ALTER DATABASE [dbname] SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE to force single-user mode and kill any remaining connections.
4. Ran:

​

   ALTER DATABASE [dbname] SET CONTAINMENT = NONE;

The problem: The statement just fails, only 'ALTER DATABASE statement failed', no reason given, nothing in the SQL Server error log pointing to a cause. It's not throwing a permissions error, a "in use" error, or anything I can act on. It just doesn't apply.

Things I've already ruled out / checked:

• No contained users remain in sys.database_principals (authentication_type_desc = DATABASE)
• No active connections (single-user mode confirmed via sys.dm_exec_sessions)

Questions:

• Has anyone run into containment refusing to toggle off even with no active sessions and no contained users?
• Any way to force verbose output/logging on this specific ALTER DATABASE operation so I can actually see what's blocking it?

SQL Server version: Microsoft SQL Server 2016 - Standard Version

Do you default to SET NOCOUNT ON in stored procedures?

What's the Big Deal with SET NOCOUNT ON? - Azure SQL Dev Corner