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A practical guide to building a solid website maintenance plan — combining automation, manual reviews, and smart tooling to stay secure, up-to-date, and efficient.

Performance issue encountered with Entity Framework Core where a query using FirstOrDefaultAsync and multiple Include statements was unexpectedly slow. By simply moving the filter condition .Where(d => d.Id == doc.Id) earlier in the query chain, EF generated a much more efficient SQL plan, reducing execution time from 20 seconds to milliseconds. The key lesson is that EF sometimes needs a bit of guidance to optimize queries effectively.

Effective performance tuning starts by using analytics and profiling tools such as Azure Application Insights or dotTrace to identify your slowest endpoints, then introducing controlled parallelism with SemaphoreSlim to accelerate CPU- or I/O-bound work. By carefully adjusting the number of concurrent operations and validating under realistic, production-like load—rather than just in development—you avoid resource exhaustion or database overload and ensure a fast, reliable user experience.

How to use RedGate SQL Compare to create upgrade scripts for databases

Before traveling, secure your devices by using strong passwords, backing up data, and checking if you need adapters for power and plugs. While traveling, avoid public WiFi, use a VPN, keep devices with you, and be cautious of unknown USBs and Bluetooth connections.

Using caching in Azure DevOps pipelines can drastically reduce build times.I cut build time from 7-8 minutes to 2-3 minutes by implementing caching.