After being forced to deliver sour grapes in my last few columns – thanks to some unexpectedly negative experiences with Oracle and DB2, not to mention the lack of new features in MDX and Windows 8 – I am  pleased to have positive news to share. On May 12 I… Read more

If you haven’t heard yet, Red Gate Software is sponsoring a six city tour of the United States of its SQL in the City conference. This one day free conference will be held at the following cities.

 

• New York, NY: Friday, September 28, 2012
• Austin, TX: Monday,…

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This week I was building power pivot models for a client pulling data from Oracle. One table kept giving the below error when trying to import:

OLE DB or ODBC error: Accessor is not a parameter accessor..

Out of line object Datasource referring to id ….

Out of line object… Read more

Ok folks, you asked for it. Well, a few of you did, anyway. So today I’m going to share with you my script for gathering server-level information as part of my SQL Server inventory. Now, I want to make one thing perfectly clear before we begin, and I can’t… Read more

It’s been interesting to watch the characters evolve on NCIS over the years, something that can only happen with time (and the luxury of surviving on the air long enough to get the time!). Whether you watch it or not, you might find value (and humor) in the “rules Read more

One of the keys to managing a large production SQL Server environment is being aware of changes that are taking place in the environment, and preventing potentially harmful changes. There are any number of ways to do this: triggers, auditing, PMB, third party monitoring, and more.

In this post, I… Read more

Denali – Day 29: Resource Governor Enhancements (Database Engine) Introduction to Resource Governor: Resource Governor is a feature introduced in sql server 2008. It requires Enterprise and developer edition.   As name implies It controls the resources allocation for users, … Continue reading →

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I got asked a question recently about what books I would recommend for learning T-SQL. I posted a couple months back about me book list for SQL Server 2012. You can find that post here. In terms of T-SQL I have a couple of books that I Like

1.… Read more

Quite often when I see a new SQL Server setup, a CHECKDB has never been run on the databases. It’s pretty simple to do, and it _could_ save you some big trouble later on.

What is it?

The command “DBCC CHECKDB(<db name>)” checks the logical and physical integrity of all… Read more

These datatypes particularly NVARCHAR(n), have been with us for some time now but having seen some of the confusion around when to use any of these, I feel oblige to share and infact to also learn more from anyone out there.

 

NVARCHAR(n)

This data is used for storing a… Read more

Just stepping out the door on on my way to the DevTeach / SQL Teach conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada.  The conference begins tomorrow at the conference center and the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown in Burnaby.  I’m looking forward to meeting up with other MVPs and associates from SolidQ.

I’ll… Read more

Although, DML and DDL triggers are used for different purposes, there are some similarities and differences between these.

 

Similarities between DDL and DML triggers:

1. Both are created using similar T-SQL syntax

2. Both can run .NET code

3. You can create multiple DDL and/or DML triggers on an… Read more

A virus found it’s way on to my system through a trojan horse, past all the security & anti-virus software. I went through the process of cleaning up, but I kept finding pieces of functionality that had been negatively impacted. Further, I was getting lots of Blue Screen of Death… Read more

One of the things I’ve been doing lately is pruning (again) the number of newsletter type emails I get. Some I’ve moved over to my feed reader, some I’ve just had to shut off for now. Often they are useful and interesting (and I still get some), I just don’t… Read more

Denali – Day 28: CDC for ORACLE Sql server has provided a great features for changes monitoring as Change data Capture Change Tracking http://www.mssqltips.com/tipprint.asp?tip=1819 Change data capture is introduced in 2008 now on Denali it supports for ORACLE database as … Continue reading →

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Between my old website, which I started back in 2007 (which has since disappeared) and my blog, which I switched to in 2009 I have been writing and publishing content regularly for a at least 5 years.

I enjoy writing on my blog I use my blog to document what… Read more

Denali – Day 27: System Center Advisor (aka ‘Atlanta’) As Microsoft is working more on Cloud base system, on that basis Microsoft has introduced a Tool for sql server called “System Center Advisor – SCA – aka Atlanta. Its internet … Continue reading →

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Introduction:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 introduces 14 new built-in functions. These functions will make the migration path for information workers by equalling functionality that is found in the expression languages.

In this article I will be covering common usage of these functions because they are very useful… Read more

Denali – Day 26: Tool: Power View -Reporting Power View (Aka Crescent)   If you are good with: Xls Pivot table Power point   And you are on administration position to get reports and want to get stats. Power View … Continue reading →

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I have 2 upcoming speaker opportunities in June and am very excited about presenting this material.

June 9th is in the 4th annual SQL Saturday in Pensacola. Karla and Mark Holmes look like they have setup a great event for IT professionals. The schedule is posted here and registration here Read more