Checkout the fifth part of my XML support and SQL Server article series here.

In this article, I discussed the basic XML query methods for XML data manipulation. I also gave an brief introduction to the XQuery language, and demonstrated how to use the query(), value(), exist(), nodes(), and… Read more

by Steve Bolton

                The three introductory posts in this series of self-tutorials on SQL Server Data Mining (SSDM) and the separate articles on the nine algorithms Microsoft ships with it covered the most complex and essential elements of of the most under-utilized and underestimated component of the product. Most of… Read more

Policy Based Management has 4 evaluation modes and if you are not already familiar with them you can go HERE to get more information.  Today I want to talk about the “On Change: Prevent” mode and why you don’t always see it as an option.

The options you see available… Read more

I saw Jessica Moss presenting at the PASS Summit a couple of years ago on Reporting Services. She has been an author to many books and has a good series on SQLServerCentral.com’s Stairway series for Reporting Services.

Please join the PASS Business Analytics virtual chapter on April 4th at… Read more

I’ve worked in a lot of different offices and office layouts over the years. Looking back I’ve been lucky (or not as you prefer) to not spend much time in a cube, almost always having my own workspace or sharing it with one other person. I’ve helped assemble furniture, move… Read more

We’re less than three weeks away from the Chicago SQL Saturday.  This will be my fourth time heading to Chicago for their SQL Saturday and I’m looking forward to that and a stop at Portillo’s (which I probably shouldn’t mention since Sarah isn’t able to come along).  The… Read more

I had someone ask me the other day if they are using SSIS 2012 Project Versions, is there any benefit to using TFS?  The answer is Yes!  While Project Versions is a new feature that keeps prior versions of SSIS projects as they are deployed to the server… Read more

I’m late writing this, and I did mean to get to it earlier, but life got in the way.

TL;DR: It was a great event, lots of fun, and I’d love to do it again.

When I first heard of a SQL Saturday coming back to Richmond (from Carlos Chacon Read more

Database mirroring has been around since SQL Server 2005, and it's turned out to be an excellent step up from log shipping.  However, like log shipping, it is still only a database-level disaster recovery solution.  Meaning that any logins, server role memberships or server-level permissions will not be mirrored over…

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Every week, Pragmatic Works offers up its “Training on the Ts” webcast series and this month, in honor of Women’s History Month, the series is showcasing all of its sessions with women speakers.  Doing this offers all of us a chance highlight some of the female voices in… Read more

I will be speaking on both Friday and Saturday (April 5-6) at SQLSaturday #197 in Omaha, Nebraska. I will be delivering a full day pre-con on Friday, and then doing Hardware 201 on Saturday. Here is the abstract for my pre-con:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

How can you scale SQL…

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Next week I head out to SQL Saturday #197 in Omaha NE. I’m looking forward to it as I’ve never been to Omaha, and only been to the state once, in the far SW corner to Oshkosh for a horse race. I’ll arrive Friday and have a short time to… Read more

For those that follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL), you’ll know that throughout the day I tweet out some links of things I find interesting.  These tweets include “Reading” in the message and are items I’ve read over the past few days, usually after hours when sharing would be… Read more

This is an uncommon task but one that does turn up every once in awhile. A SQL login has to be moved from a development server to a test server, test to prod etc. Or maybe a lateral move to a new server. And frequently the DBA doesn’t and/or shouldn’t… Read more

The 10th cumulative update release for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 is now available. Cumulative Update 10 contains all the hotfixes released since the initial release of SQL Server 2008 SP3.

Those who are facing severe issues with their environment, they can plan to test CU10 in test environment… Read more

Microsoft has stated pretty clearly that they’re putting code on Azure first, ahead of the desktop. Which makes one wonder when we’re going to start to see some of this cool stuff within SSMS. What cool stuff you ask? Well, let me explain. Let’s start with a query:

SELECT	m.MovieName,…

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I recently encountered an interesting performance issue (due to implicit conversions) that I was able to solve using a lesser known technique and I wanted to share it with you here.

A customer environment was suddenly receiving high CPU alarms and I was called in to take a look.

Having… Read more

There are different options available when you want to execute a .sql script file on a server. You can open the script file in SQL Server Management Studio and execute it, or you can use SQLCMD to execute a script from command line. However, when you have large number of… Read more

I recently implemented an MDX expression to count the number of weekdays in a given timeframe.  This logic is likely easier to implement in SQL, but in this instance it was necessary to implement in MDX.  I thought I’d share the MDX since it may prove to be useful to… Read more