As much as we're SQL Server folks here, sometimes we do need to connect to other data stores. Hai shares some of his experiences doing so. Might come in handy someday.   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...

Free SQL Server 2000 Encryption for your data!!! Author Michael Coles has put together a tolljit and some XPs that you can use to encrypt your data with the Blowfish algorithm. It is hard to write good applications that encrpyt data and manage the keys and security. This will give you a great headstart on protecting your data.   Read more...

This article discusses why VBScript should be one of the tools you use to manage your server. Sample scripts show how to remove files over x days old and how to FTP files.   Read more...

When automating administrative actions for SQL Server, there are a number of ways to handle the workflow. Longtime SQL Server DBA Roy Carlson brings us a technique for using a text file as input to the standard SQL Server tools.   Read more...

New Author! Deadlocks aren't the most common problem but they happen they can really degrade performance. Shiv works through how to nail down what is causing the deadlock.   Read more...

In this article, Brian looks at how Citrix MetaFrame can use SQL Server for its internal data repository. The basic operation of SQL Server in a Citrix MetaFrame installation is covered. In addition, Brian looks at how a DBA is an integral part of the support team for a successful Citrix MetaFrame farm.   Read more...

When automating administrative actions for SQL Server, there are a number of ways to handle the workflow. Longtime SQL Server DBA Roy Carlson brings us a technique for using a text file as input to the standard SQL Server tools.   Read more...

New author Jambu Krishnamurthy brings us a look at table variables and how they differ from temporary tables in SQL Server 2000.   Read more...

In the second of a series of articles that targets the DBA new to an organization, this article looks at how to manage DTS packages.   Read more...

Ensuring that your disk subsystem performs well and does not run out of space is a balancing act that many DBAs learn over time through trial and "out of space" errors. New author Arindam Banerjee takes a look at some of the things to consider when capacity planning.   Read more...

Attaching and detaching databases is old hat these days right? Do you know how to reattach a database that has more than 16 files? Or do you know what happens if you try to reattach a database that had two log files but one is missing/deleted? And even if you know the answer to that - do you know how to fix it without restoring from backup? Maybe it's not ALL old hat just yet!   Read more...

As much as we're SQL Server folks here, sometimes we do need to connect to other data stores. Hai shares some of his experiences doing so. Might come in handy someday.   Read more...

I have always read that 8060 bytes is the maximum size. This is stated over and over again in Books Online, the MS site and numerous other sites, including this one. However a post in our forum recently questioned this. I decided to verify the problem and do a little research.   Read more...

Free SQL Server 2000 Encryption for your data!!! Author Michael Coles has put together a tolljit and some XPs that you can use to encrypt your data with the Blowfish algorithm. It is hard to write good applications that encrpyt data and manage the keys and security. This will give you a great headstart on protecting your data.   Read more...

This article by Chris Kempster covers a wide variety of areas concerned with data migration. Primarily, it focuses on process, standards and some of the many issues to consider when undertaking this role.   Read more...

DTS is a fantastic ETL tool and it is often used to import Excel documents. However this can be a manual process in many cases in setting up the package. New author Sloan Holliday brings us a way that you can leverage Office XP's automation facilities and XML to import data into SQL Server.   Read more...

Auditing, analyzing and documenting your SQL Server installation is becoming more important all the time, especially as more and more attention is being paid to the security of your environment. Chad Miller brings us a look at a framework and a sample document you can use in your environment to conduct an audit.   Read more...

Have you ever had a need to run a query or a process as soon as SQL Server starts? Or run some set of tasks when SQL Server Agent Starts? Possibly you want to run a cleanup routine, a copy process or have some task started each time SQL server or SQL Agent is started. Well if this is the case then this article will discuss a couple of options you might consider using to accomplish automatically running your process.  Read more...

Auditing SQL Server, or any system, is not an easy task and with new regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, it is becoming a full time job in some environments. Chad Miller brings us a way that he developed with Excel and some scripting to automate some of the security information for a large installation of SQL Servers.   Read more...

Free SQL Server 2000 Encryption for your data!!! Author Michael Coles has put together a tolljit and some XPs that you can use to encrypt your data with the Blowfish algorithm. It is hard to write good applications that encrpyt data and manage the keys and security. This will give you a great headstart on protecting your data.   Read more...

When automating administrative actions for SQL Server, there are a number of ways to handle the workflow. Longtime SQL Server DBA Roy Carlson brings us a technique for using a text file as input to the standard SQL Server tools.   Read more...

New author Jambu Krishnamurthy brings us a look at table variables and how they differ from temporary tables in SQL Server 2000.   Read more...