Learn how you can manipulat XML documents solely in memory. No file required.   Read more...

When compared with HASHBYTES, CHECKSUM, has a number of drawbacks. Hence, a question that comes up is: Is Checksum really required? In this article, I attempt to answer that question.  Read more...

Auditing, conflict resolution, tamper & concurrency protection are some of the most common requirements for any enterprise system – this 2-part series presents an in-depth look at the various change detection mechanisms available within SQL Server.  Read more...

Auditing, conflict resolution, tamper & concurrency protection are some of the most common requirements for any enterprise system – this 2-part series presents an in-depth look at the various change detection mechanisms available within SQL Server.  Read more...

Find the country, region and city of a user from an IP address using SQL Server. Oscar Garcia provides some code and resources if you want to dig into your analytics on your own.  Read more...

This article will show you how to use user-defined triggers to supplement your security policies, preventing unauthorised data manipulation and blocking unfriendly logins.  Read more...

Not everything in SQL Server is documented and Steve Jones doesn't think that everything should be. However some features are used often and should have additional documentation.  Read more...

Change tracking in SQL Server 2008 enables applications to obtain only changes that have been made to the user tables, along with the information about those changes.  Read more...

The Sequence Object is one of the many exciting new features introduced in SQL Server 2012. Learn what this new feature can do for you and how you can use it.  Read more...

Who messed around with my database? Auditing 101. In this article we will take a look at another technique available in SQL 2008 and higher. This new technique is SQL Audit.  Read more...

This article describes how to backup a database using a C# Windows Form.   Read more...

Should you be using Report Builder 3.0 or SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 to build reports? Here's the 411!  Read more...

In my previous article we discussed Change Tracking which is one of the new technologies introduced by Microsoft. This article will focus on Change Data Capture.   Read more...

How can you tell when your SQL Server instance was last started? In this tip we look at various methods of how to get the start time for a SQL Server instance.  Read more...

Developers, by every natural instinct and training, strive to make their code reusable and generic. Dissuading them from doing so, in certain circumstances, is akin to trying to persuade a dog not to fetch a stick.  Read more...

SSRS 2008 R2 introduced lots of exciting new features, reviewed in a sister article to this one. Here we consider what Microsoft didn't do well in this version of Reporting Services.  Read more...

The 10 things Microsoft got right about SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 (a sister article shows 10 things which aren't quite so good)  Read more...

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a custom scripting framework which enables the management of SQLServer databases from a Windows PowerShell session and also to extend Powershell’s flexibility by creating a set of commands customized to our needs.  Read more...

Use Powershell to create a single script that checks over your server and every SQL instance on it to help pinpoint problems.  Read more...

Unless James Bond is in the picture, security is usually not a sexy topic. However, we all lament the lack...  Read more...