How many of you use Execution Plans to tune your queries? Do you understand the impact of different indexes? Mr. Vijayakumar looks at his experiments with different types of indexes and their effects on the execution plan use. A great article for those of you that want to learn more about how you can tune your server for better performance.   Read more...

DTS is an incredible package for moving data in the SQL Server world. One feature that is missing, however, is the ability to send files using FTP to a remote server. This article looks at a technique for sending files via FTP.   Read more...

In this follow up Andy looks into some of the options available when you're dealing with situations where you're joining a case sensitive column to a case insensitive column. We think after reading this you'll be ready to just say no!   Read more...

See what a reader had to say about Part 1, make sure you've read Part 2, then feel the pain as the author describes a lookup table that should have had unique values and doesn't.   Read more...

Sysforeignkeys is a valuable SQL Server resource. How many times have you had to "pick up the pieces" from a database developed by someone else and dropped on your desk? Ever get a database diagram with that? A data dictionary? Probably not too often. Jeffrey Yao has developed a system of finding those parent-child relationships automatically and displaying them so he can get up to speed quickly on these inherited databases. Read on to find out more.   Read more...

Creating a system stored procedure isn't hard. You're always cautioned from making changes to the system, depending on the system for a particular functionality, etc., and you should be cautious. However adding system stored procedures to your servers can be beneficial and make your administration much more convenient. Read on the see how easy this can be to do.   Read more...

How many of you use Execution Plans to tune your queries? Do you understand the impact of different indexes? Mr. Vijayakumar looks at his experiments with different types of indexes and their effects on the execution plan use. A great article for those of you that want to learn more about how you can tune your server for better performance.   Read more...

Have you ever had the problem where a user ran a query against your SQL Serer and crashed it or made the server unusable since the CPU was spiked at 100%? A SQL Server black box is the equivalent of a flight data record. The black box records all queries being passed to your SQL Server and other useful information like errors.   Read more...

In this example, we will attempt to get some statistical information on file-group utilization to assist us with IO monitoring.   Read more...

This article shows you one of the most time saving stored procedure built into SQL Server and then shows you how you can modify it to affect additional objects like triggers. For example, after this article and the code in the article, you'll be able to disable every trigger in your system in one line of code.   Read more...

DTS is an incredible package for moving data in the SQL Server world. One feature that is missing, however, is the ability to send files using FTP to a remote server. This article looks at a technique for sending files via FTP.   Read more...

Running a script automatically from SQL Server is easier than you think. Here are a few methods you can use.   Read more...

This is a broad overview of the DBCC SQLPERF command primarily for version 7 and 2000.   Read more...

An interesting feature added to SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 is the ability to purge an error log through a stored procedure or DBCC command. In this article, Brian Knight shows some of the undocumented stored procedures to detect, read and purge an SQL Server error log in T-SQL.   Read more...

In some cases, you may have to be able to quickly disable all the constraints and triggers in a database. This article shows you how to do this with a few lines of T-SQL.   Read more...

How many of you use Execution Plans to tune your queries? Do you understand the impact of different indexes? Mr. Vijayakumar looks at his experiments with different types of indexes and their effects on the execution plan use. A great article for those of you that want to learn more about how you can tune your server for better performance.   Read more...

Sysforeignkeys is a valuable SQL Server resource. How many times have you had to "pick up the pieces" from a database developed by someone else and dropped on your desk? Ever get a database diagram with that? A data dictionary? Probably not too often. Jeffrey Yao has developed a system of finding those parent-child relationships automatically and displaying them so he can get up to speed quickly on these inherited databases. Read on to find out more.   Read more...

In this follow up Andy looks into some of the options available when you're dealing with situations where you're joining a case sensitive column to a case insensitive column. We think after reading this you'll be ready to just say no!   Read more...