Fill in another bit of your T-SQL knowledge about STR(). It right justifies, rounds, and controls the output width of columns. Sounds perfect but here's why you might not want to use it.  Read more...

As a developer, if you need to go into the database and write queries, design tables, or determine the configuration of your SQL Server Systems, these tips should help make sure you're not unnecessarily sacrificing database performance. This eBook has 45 easy tips to improve the performance of your indexes and T-SQL queries, and hunt down problems within ORM tools and database design.   Read more...

How to Compare Rows within Partitioned Sets to Find Overlapping, Contiguous, or Gap dates  Read more...

Quick and efficent way to change SQL service startup parameters for 1000 instances!  Read more...

This article uses XML to deal with optional parameters along with multiple parameter passed into a stored procedure. (Note: We are re-running this as we had a newsletter issue last week)  Read more...

Nigel Sammy will be presenting this PASS Data Architecture VC webinar on December 19 at 12PM CST. The webinar will share insight on how basic query structure and logic works so you can avoid wasting too much time on trial and error when writing queries.   Read more...

This article uses XML to deal with optional parameters along with multiple parameter passed into a stored procedure. (Note: We are re-running this as we had a newsletter issue last week)  Read more...

Follow the guidance of your DBA, but remember, he or she is from another land.  Read more...

SQL Server 2012 introduces a new feature to issues backups on the Windows Azure Blob Storage service directly and restore from there when needed. But how does it work and how to get started using T-SQL commands for backup and restore operation?   Read more...

A classic article by Gerg Larsen explaining how and how not to use a function within your T-SQL statements. Where you place your function within your T-SQL statements determines how your query will be processed and can severely impact the query execution plan and the performance of your query.   Read more...

Steve Jones thinks there is a list of core skills that any database developer or DBA needs. This week he asks you for a list of those things you think should be included.  Read more...

A CLR Procedure that performs multi-threaded fie copies without external command line tools.  Read more...

This article shows how to find missing rows in a table using a outer join.   Read more...

As a developer, if you need to go into the database and write queries, design tables, or determine the configuration of your SQL Server Systems, these tips should help make sure you're not unnecessarily sacrificing database performance. This eBook has 45 easy tips to improve the performance of your indexes and T-SQL queries, and hunt down problems within ORM tools and database design.   Read more...

This Friday, Steve Jones looks for opinions on what you think of the T-SQL language. Is it well structured or does it really need help?  Read more...

The SQL MERGE statement offers convenience, safety and elegance, but how does it perform compared to other methods?  Read more...

Putting a column name in a COUNT() function may not always give you what you are looking for.  Read more...

How to remove identify and remove duplicate data from your tables  Read more...

Sometimes we have a T-SQL process that we need to run that takes some time to run or we want to run it during idle time on the server. We could create a SQL Agent job manually, but is there any simple way to create a scheduled job?  Read more...

Fill in another bit of your T-SQL knowledge by learning how to quickly group ranges of contiguous dates without RBAR.  Read more...