Here is a fresh set of diagnostic information queries for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 for December 2011. Some of the queries (which are labeled) will only work with SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 or later. Most of the queries will also work with SQL Server 2012,… Read more

1. Datacentre Edition is no longer available as a MS SQL Server 2012 RC0 candidate, Read More
2. MS SQL Server 2012 RC0 includes new edition – SQL Server Business Intelligence,  Read More
3. Service Pack 1 is the minimum requirement for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems, Read more

Read more

Results of the 2011 PASS Board of Directors election were officially announced this morning. I want to congratulate my friends Adam Jorgensen (Blog | Twitter), Denise McInerney (Blog | Twitter), and Rob Farley (Blog | Twitter) for each being elected to a 2 year… Read more

SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS) has a number of enhancements in SQL Server 2012:

Improved web user interface – If you are a current user of MDS in SQL Server 2008 R2 you know that it’s pretty difficult to navigate and feels like a “1.0″ version.  In… Read more

Getting row count for all tables in a database is straight forward. You can display row count for all tables by joining sys.objects and sys.partitions as below:

[UPDATE: sys.partitions only shows an approximation of the number of rows. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175012.aspx)%5D

USE   [AdventureWorks2008R2]

GO

SELECT      SCHEMA_NAME( Read more

The 2011 Election results were just posted, congratulations to Adam Jorgensen, Denise McInerney, and Rob Farley for taking the top three positions and earning a two year term on the Board. Thanks to Kendal Van Dyke, Sri Sridharan, and Geoff Hiten for being candidates this year – I hope… Read more

I’m writing this on December 17th, thinking back on 2011, and it has been a good year. Not always simple or going where I thought it would go, but a good year. 2012 will bring more change as I finish my current work project in April or so and decide… Read more

You can only use the position() function within an xquery predicate and can't use it to return the position value of the node itself, which is a shame, but a couple of good workarounds have been published. However I had a requirement (don't ask why!) to return the position()… Read more

I have seen a few recap posts bouncing around the net and started thinking about my own blog.  So out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at my top 5 posts for 2011.

So, since I already subscribe to Google Analytics, I decided to check the stats in… Read more

Microsoft is working on the next round of certification exams for SQL Server 2012. So now is the best time to learn about 2012. The best resources to use for preparing for the exams should all come MSDN.

The first is product documentation for 2012

Additionally, expect to see… Read more

Next week marks the end of my third and final year serving on the PASS Board of Directors. I’ve struggled to write this, to find the right focus, and in the end decided to write just a few thoughts that keep coming to the forefront for me.

I’ll start by… Read more

Here is an issue I encountered recently while using gauge in reporting services.
There are three gauges in the report one for each product; bikes, computers, and hardware. The value being showed is YTD sales and all gauges show a value of 100 for YTD Sales as seen below:

However… Read more

Like many others, I’m planning a few changes for my life for next year.  I’m a believer in finding one’s own way, while still abiding the advice of the wise.  Often called upon for inspirations are the timeless words of Confucius, the inspiring speeches of Martin Luther King,… Read more

Dear Friends, we had a user group meeting last week – I and Vinay Pugalia was  here. We have discussed many things to revamp and re-launch Surat User Group. Here are the minutes of meeting:

1) Regular Meetings -> Monthly, Proposed schedule :Saturday evening, 1900 to 2000

2) Regular Events… Read more

Over the last few days, you may have noticed that there’s been a bit of talk about a SQL Server MCM Study Group.  In fact, Robert Davis (Blog | @SQLSoldier) tweeted about it the other day when he provided some sample corrupt databases.

You may be wondering, what… Read more

Making a backup of your Service Master Key (SMK) should be one of the first things that you do if you are enabling encryption. This key encrypts and secures your other keys, and it will be needed when you have to rebuild the server.

Backing up the key is simple.… Read more

On December 19, 2011, Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM Cumulative Update 11 (CU11), which is Build 10.50.1807.0. I count 22 fixes in this Cumulative Update. This CU is only for the SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM branch, so it will not work if you have already installed SQL… Read more

Webcast: Putting a Better SQL Server in Production

Problems come up everyday that could have been avoided by simply configuring… Read more

On December 19, 2011, Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Cumulative Update 4 (CU4), which is Build 10.50.2796. I count 52 fixes in the fix list for this Cumulative Update, which is an unusually high number for a CU. Keep in mind that this CU is only for SQL… Read more

Introduction

Many times while developing any report we come across a situation where we need to SORT the TABLE columns or the columns in the GROUP dynamically. There are many well known ways to achieve this. However, here I will demonstrate a not-so-known way -

Implementation

Assuming that the… Read more