Lowering the bar for entry does not mean lowering the bar for quality. New to SQL Server? Find out where to start.  Read more...

Views are a valuable tool for the SQL Server Developer, because they hide complexity and allow for a readable style of SQL expression. They aren't there for reasons of performance, and so indexed views are designed to remedy this shortcoming. They're great in certain circumstances but they represent a trade-off, and they come with considerable 'small print'. Jes Borland explains.  Read more...

Two weeks ago Andy started his wildly successful series on Worst Practices. This week he continues that series discussing why failing to use primary keys and clustered indexes are worst practices. Agree or disagree, read the article and join the discussion. One thing you'll have to admit, reading an article by Andy is a lot more interesting than reading Books Online!   Read more...

Jambu Krishnamurthy brings us a look at the various options you have available with views and some of the techniques you can use to build a better database by incorporating them in your design.   Read more...

This article will quickly dive head first right into XML.   Read more...

This article shows how to retrieve both remote and local XML data and display it in a data Web control.  Read more...

Continuing on with his series on XML in SQL Server 2005, Jacob Sebastian brings us more examples on how to delve into the values of XML data.   Read more...

The classic paper from Dr. Codd.  Read more...

Jambu Krishnamurthy brings us a look at the various options you have available with views and some of the techniques you can use to build a better database by incorporating them in your design.   Read more...

All the hype that once surrounded XML is finally starting to die down, and developers are really beginning to harness the power and flexibility of the language. XML is a data descriptive language that uses a set of user-defined tags to describe data in a hierarchically-structured format.  Read more...

While SQL Server 2005 has greatly expanded the XML capabilities of the platform, many DBAs are still not familiar with or comfortable with using XML in their coding. Yousef Ekhtiari brings us a new article that looks at a basic use of XML in inserting data into a table.   Read more...

When designing and creating a data model for a data-driven application, the records in tables must each be uniquely identifiable. By having a unique value associated with each record, individual records can be selected, updated, or deleted. Being able to uniquely identify records is so important and standard in a database system that databases allow those designing a database table to specify what column (or columns) make up the primary key.  Read more...

Data space can be a concern in many situations as more and more data is being stored in your systems. Designing your schema to take this into account is important for a DBA and Steve Jones takes a look at how design decisions can be used to solve a business problem.   Read more...

Relational tables often describe more than one type of real world entity. In this tip, Bob Watkins covers some things to think about when designing such tables.  Read more...

Learn how to use Data Manipulation Language, a set of statements used to store, retrieve, modify, and erase data from a database, for untyped XML columns.  Read more...

n SQL Server 2005, XML becomes a first-class data type. Developers can make minor remote modifications to stored XML documents easily, taking advantage of new support for XML schema-based strong typing, and server-based XML data validation.   Read more...

XML is now becoming more widely used as wireless devices are becoming more secure, and new technologies such as XQuery for SQL Server 2005 are making it much easier to handle XML more efficiently at the server level. Jesse Smith gives you a crash course on XQuery methods and how you can use them in certain situations to retrieve and update XML data stored in your SQL Server 2005 database.  Read more...

SQL Server 2005 introduces a lot of new features, but it also enhances the popular and oft-used Transact-SQL (T-SQL) language. Changes include the introduction of new datatypes to store large values using the MAX indicator, the integration of enhanced XML querying and data modification with XQuery, and the new XML datatype.  Read more...

A SELECT query returns results as a rowset. You can optionally retrieve formal results of a SQL query as XML by specifying the FOR XML clause in the query.  Read more...

The alternative to surrogate keys is natural data keys. In order to understand the many substantial benefits of surrogate keys it's necessary to discuss some background on the issues involved.  Read more...