Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Your ORM choice shapes your app’s performance, scalability, and future growth. Pick the right one, and your app runs smoothly, scales with ease, and handles complex queries without breaking a sweat. Pick the wrong one, and you’re in for a world of late-night debugging sessions you didn’t sign up for. For most.NET developers, the decision often comes down to NHibernate vs Entity Framework Core (EF Core).

If you’ve ever worked with SQL Server databases, you know how vital string manipulation is to day-to-day workflows. Whether extracting specific details, reformatting text, or cleaning up inconsistent data, having the right tools isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. That’s where the SUBSTRING() function comes in. It’s one of the foundational tools for handling text in SQL Server, allowing you to isolate specific parts of a string with precision and ease.

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) has long been the default for SQL Server development, but is it still enough? As modern databases become more diverse, SSDT’s rigid focus on SQL Server, lack of advanced performance tools, and limited cross-platform support leave many teams struggling. If your database needs are growing beyond SQL Server—or you want more automation, performance optimization, and flexibility—you’ll need an upgrade. So, what’s replacing SSDT?

Working with large datasets often involves searching for patterns buried deep in your data. Whether you’re validating entries, cleaning records, or identifying errors, pinpointing specific text within strings, these tasks can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools. That’s where the PATINDEX() function in SQL Server comes in, offering a powerful solution for locating patterns quickly and accurately.

Developers often find it slow and difficult to search for specific parts of a string in SQL. Searching through large text can be time-consuming and make work more complicated. SQL Server CHARINDEX function helps by quickly finding the position of a SQL Server substring. This makes it easier and faster to work with text in SQL. In this guide, we’ll explain how CHARINDEX() works, highlight its uses, and walk you through a few simple examples to help you grasp it easily.

Few things are more frustrating than a SQL query that looks perfect but refuses to run. You double-check the syntax, scan for typos—everything seems fine. Yet MySQL keeps throwing an error. The culprit? A reserved word buried in your schema. Reserved words like ORDER, WITH, and GROUPS aren’t just ordinary terms—they’re fundamental to MySQL’s syntax. If you mistakenly use one as a table or column name without proper handling, your queries may break unexpectedly.

Dealing with different data sources without efficient data integration tools turns valuable information into a liability. These solutions give you a unified view of your data, eliminating silos and ensuring data consistency, accuracy, and accessibility. But, where do you start? Navigating the 2025 data integration market, with the shift towards scalable cloud platforms, self-service integrations, and AI automation, can be tough.

SQL Server data types are the foundation upon which your entire database structure rests. They define the kind of data you can store in each column, from simple integers and text strings to complex date/time values and binary data. Picking the right SQL data type means your data is stored efficiently, queries run fast, and your information stays accurate. Using an overly large data type wastes space and slows things down, while using a too small type risks data loss or errors.

As someone who’s worked with SQL Server databases, you know there’s no margin for error. A single discrepancy between environments can cascade into a failed deployment, broken workflows, or inaccurate reports. And let’s face it, manually comparing schemas and data isn’t just tedious; it’s risky. This is where industry-leading database comparison tools come to the rescue, turning a frustrating, time-consuming process into a smooth and efficient one.

SQL Server DROP INDEX is a command you’ll find yourself using regularly as you manage and optimize your databases. Indexes are important for performance, but they’re not a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. Sometimes, an index becomes obsolete, redundant, or even detrimental. That’s when you need to know how to use the DROP INDEX SQL statement effectively.

The SQL Server GETDATE() function grabs the current date and time of the server down to the millisecond. This makes it perfect for general timestamping, logging events, and simple date/time math. But what about time zones or when you need a rock-solid, consistent timestamp? Is GETDATE() enough, or do you need something else, like CURRENT_TIMESTAMP? In this article, we’ll show you how and when to use GETDATE() in SQL.

Today, we’re thrilled to share the latest updates on VictoriaLogs, your trusted open-source solution for efficient and user-friendly log management. Whether you’re just discovering VictoriaLogs or have been using it for a while, this post will walk you through the recent enhancements and give you a sneak peek at the much anticipated cluster version that’s on the horizon.

In the early days, people debated how safe it was to store their money in the bank; now, we debate running databases on Kubernetes. Over the years, Kubernetes has evolved significantly, transforming into a capable platform for handling various workloads, including stateful ones. In this blog, I will consolidate some of the best arguments from both sides and provide you with some points to discuss with your team lead in your next conversation. It's an interesting topic with varying answers.

The Slack Salesforce integration offers one connected workspace where your team can share real-time updates on deals, collaborate on sales strategies, and receive instant notifications on key Salesforce events. Instead of switching between platforms and dealing with fragmented communication, you get a unified view of your sales pipeline and improve team communication. Setting this up isn’t complicated.

Stripe is one of the world’s leading payment gateways. It allows its users to manage their payments worldwide, ensuring security and offering seamless payment methods for all businesses, regardless of size. With the rise of no-code platforms, integrating this payment system into most projects becomes a no-brainer. No-code platforms help users connect Stripe with various business tools, eventually reducing the need for complex coding.

Salesforce is one of the best CRM platforms available. It helps companies manage sales efficiently, letting them smoothly perform customer interactions and boost many other business tasks. However, the real value of connecting Salesforce to analytics tools is an increased ability to analyze sales data for making data-driven decisions. Salesforce data can be very important for accurate reporting and advanced analytics, and its seamless integration can turn out to be a game-changer for business.

With the increasing list of databases — SQL and NoSQL, each with its own strengths and use cases — it’s essential to understand how these systems differ and which one is right for your specific requirements. In this article, we’ll break down their features, advantages, and real-world use cases, helping you make the best choice for your project.

Microsoft SQL Server is a critical database component of many business applications, ensuring data integrity, fast query performance, and seamless transactions. However, maintaining peak performance requires proactive monitoring of essential metrics. In this blog, we’ll explore the key SQL Server performance metrics you should track and how they help prevent performance issues, optimize resource usage, and enhance database efficiency.

Valkey is a new database management system that is gaining traction. Valkey is a fork of Redis, and it is available as a deb package in the Ubuntu 24.04 release. You can install it by simply running sudo apt install valkey. We also offer a Valkey container to allow you to run a secure, compliant and long-term supported Valkey on top of any Linux distribution.

Database downtime can lead to significant disruptions, revenue loss, and frustrated users. Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) provides a managed database solution with high availability and automated failover to minimize such risks. However, continuous monitoring is crucial to ensuring reliable failover and minimizing downtime by detecting potential issues before they impact operations.

Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is a modern object-relational mapper (ORM) for.NET Core and.NET applications, enabling efficient database interaction while minimizing the need for raw SQL queries. A fundamental aspect of EF Core is defining Entity Framework relationships, ensuring data consistency and referential integrity in relational databases. This guide explores one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships in EF Core, covering their implementation, configuration, and best practices.

While Azure DevOps offers a solid framework for application development, integrating Flyway into this setup can greatly simplify and enhance database deployments. In today’s fast-changing database environment, development teams are always looking for ways to improve their deployment processes. While Azure DevOps offers a solid framework for application development, integrating Redgate Flyway into this setup can greatly simplify and enhance database deployments.

Prometheus Metrics Explained: Counters, Gauges, Histograms & Summaries This discussion is the first part of the basic monitoring series, an effort to eliminate confusion in monitoring for both beginners and experienced users.

Prometheus Monitoring: Instant Queries and Range Queries Explained Over the years, we’ve received many questions about MetricsQL/PromQL, even from experienced users—especially regarding range queries and instant queries. This article is basic but turns out to be really important to explain why your query behaves the way it does. This discussion is part of the basic monitoring series, an effort to eliminate confusion in monitoring for both beginners and experienced users.

Datadog Database Monitoring (DBM) Recommendations help you proactively optimize performance throughout your database fleet. DBM draws on a wide range of data sources in order to detect and provide actionable guidance on issues such as blocking queries, low disk space, and missing indexes. In this post, we’ll show you how DBM formulates targeted indexing recommendations to help you optimize database performance.

This year Grafana Mimir — the open source, horizontally scalable, multi-tenant time series database (TSDB) — will celebrate its third anniversary. Over the years, Mimir has become the go-to, Prometheus-compatible metrics backend within the open source community, with 29 maintainers and more than 4.6k GitHub stars. Since introducing Mimir, we’ve worked hard to deliver on our promise of making it the most scalable and performant open source TSDB in the world.

In the last few years, Postgres has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity. A relational database that not long ago was relatively unknown outside of academic circles has now eclipsed MySql as the most popular database for developers in the most recent StackOverflow user survey. Why has it achieved such impressive popularity with developers?

When you're working with DynamoDB, one of the most critical things you need to keep an eye on is throttling. If you're not careful, throttling can severely impact your database's performance. It’s not just about slower response times—throttling can lead to system failures or unexpected downtime if not addressed properly.

In case you haven’t heard about it yet, FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) is a huge, free, gathering for open-source software enthusiasts that happens every February in Brussels, Belgium. It’s a non-profit event put together by the community, and it’s one of the biggest of its kind - we’re talking about around 10,000 people from all over the world coming to hang out and talk about all things open source.

Cardinality refers to the number of unique values in a dataset column. A column with many distinct values—like a user ID or timestamp—has high cardinality, while a column with limited distinct values—like a boolean flag (true/false) or a category with a few possible options—has low cardinality. For example, consider a database of an e-commerce platform.

Redgate's new book, 'Introduction to PostgreSQL for the data professional', is now available for free download. Hear from authors Ryan Booz & Grant Fritchey about their inspiration for the book and the challenges they faced along the way. While the documentation around PostgreSQL is detailed and technically rich, finding a simple, clear path to learning what it is, what it does, and how to use it can be challenging.

We are excited to introduce a new version of SecureBridge 10.7 – a suite of client and server components for SSH, SFTP, FTPS, HTTP/HTTPS, SSL, WebSocket, and SignalR protocols – packed with enhanced security, optimized performance, and extended functionality for secure data transmission.

Redis is a highly efficient, versatile in-memory data store that is commonly utilized in modern applications. However, like any technology, it is not without its challenges, particularly when it comes to managing connections. By systematically reviewing Redis logs, you can diagnose and resolve these problems effectively. This blog provides an overview of Redis logs, explores their importance, and highlights how log management tools can simplify troubleshooting.

Azure Flexible Server joins the suite of PostgreSQL hosting platforms supported by Redgate Monitor, which also includes Linux hosts or VMs, Amazon RDS and Aurora. Our goal is to provide you with a single-pane-of-glass view of your entire PostgreSQL estate, whether it’s running in Azure, AWS, or on-prem, ensuring simpler troubleshooting, better insights, and faster performance tuning.

High-traffic applications demand speed, reliability, and scalability, making Redis a top choice for tasks like caching and real-time analytics. However, as traffic grows, ensuring Redis operates at peak performance requires effective monitoring. By tracking key metrics, addressing bottlenecks, and optimizing resource use, Redis monitoring plays a vital role in maintaining stability and scalability.

Imagine your PostgreSQL database slowing down unexpectedly, causing delayed queries, application timeouts, and frustrated users. In a data-driven world, database performance issues can lead to downtime, lost revenue, and poor user experience. PostgreSQL monitoring tools help detect and resolve performance bottlenecks, ensuring optimal database health, efficient query execution, and high availability.

What happens if we put OpenTelemetry, Prometheus 2.x, Prometheus 3.x, and vmagent together for comparison in scraping and pushing data to remote storage?

PostgreSQL is a beast when it comes to handling data, but if you're running an instance that needs to be accessed remotely, securing it with SSL is non-negotiable. Without SSL, your database connection is essentially an open book for anyone snooping on the network. Let’s lock it down with properly signed certificates!

So, you’ve got a PostgreSQL database packed with juicy data, and you want to turn those raw numbers into slick, interactive Grafana dashboards? Good call! Grafana’s PostgreSQL datasource is like the secret handshake that lets you visualize your data in style—no extra ETL magic required. In this guide, we’ll walk through getting PostgreSQL and Grafana to play nice, covering everything from connection settings to query tuning.