Andy Warren started his worst practice series some time ago with the intention of looking at the worst things you can do. Given that we may not always be able to implement the best practices, at least we can try to avoid doing things harm the system or decrease performance. This article continues the series and looks at an item I see mentioned in our discussion forum quite often, triggering external events. From a trigger.   Read more...

Adding a column is one of the simpler tasks you'll ever do as a DBA, yet danger lurks! All too often we add columns without going through some type of check list to make sure we're safe. What could adding a column break? You might be surprised!   Read more...

Microsoft has released a new tool to analyzer your SQL Servers and see how they conform to their list of common best practices. Give it a try and let us know what you think.   Read more...

This article presents two best practices. One is about how to construct good table aliases, the other is about using ANSI join syntax. Good stuff!   Read more...

This short article looks at some mistakes developers should avoid when they also have the task of designing the database, database objects, or TSQL used to access it.   Read more...

Andy started writing about worst practices a long time ago and returns this week with one that is short and sweet - why defining rows that exceed 8060 characters is a very bad idea and how you can avoid it.   Read more...

We can only guess that someone somewhere put spaces in an object name that Andy works with and gave him the idea for this worst practice. Funny as the topic may sound, we agree - why make your lifer harder?   Read more...

Andy returns to the Worst Practice series this week with a short article looking at how connection strings in applications affect what you see in sysprocesses. Perhaps less controversial (in our opinion) that some of the other worst practices, this is something easy to fix and definitely worth fixing! Read the article and post a comment - explore other points of view! Readers posting a comment will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit.   Read more...

This article, Part 2 – SQL Server 6.5 to 2000 Critical Upgrade Decisions and Redundant Upgrade Architecture, will begin to detail the technical components faced by the DBAs and Developers during the Upgrade process. The technical components detail the Critical Upgrade Decisions related to ANSI NULLS, Quoted Identifiers and other items.   Read more...

This article discusses various SQL Server Data Transformation Services (DTS) best practices. It is divided into sections like DTS naming conventions, DTS documentation, troubleshooting DTS packages, improving the performance of DTS packages, securing DTS packages, DTS resources.   Read more...

Join SQLServerCentral.com co-founder Brian Knight for this free webcast on SQL Server security best practices. In this session on Technet, we will look at how to protect your system from internal and external security factors. We will look at the types of permissions in your database objects, implementing column and row-level security, and protecting yourself from SQL Injection attacks. We'll also cover best practices for basic and advanced protection for your SQL Server system.  Read more...

Not even worth talking about, right? Probably, but they still exist. Read about this worst practice and pass it along.   Read more...

Join SQLServerCentral.com co-founder for this free webcast on SQL Server security best practices. In this session, we will look at how to protect your system from internal and external security factors. We will look at the types of permissions in your database objects, implementing column and row-level security, and protecting yourself from SQL Injection attacks. We'll also cover best practices for basic and advanced protection for your SQL Server system.  Read more...

This article is the first of a multi-part series detailing the SQL Server Upgrade process from the technical, logistical and business perspective.   Read more...

This one is pretty interesting, Andy discusses a few things he sees in comments that not only fail to add value, they end up costing extra time. There's room for discussion here, but definitely a discussion worth having - comments can make you or break you, here's a chance to think about what you think is important in commenting and pass that on to your development team.   Read more...

Continuing with our worst practices series, Steve Jones looks at another administrative no-no. Making a change to your live system on the fly.   Read more...

We're curious to see what our readers have to say about this one! How many of us have tables accruing data that won't be used and/or isn't of any value? At what point do we get rid of it to free up resources?   Read more...

If you've been with us for a while you know that Andy started a series last year on worst practices. As he says, maybe you can't always do best practices, but at least dont do the worst ones. Read the article and add a comment, participate!   Read more...

Join NetIQ on July 17, 2002 for a free web seminar on "SQL Server Best Practices -- Tools and Techniques for Improving Production Operations". The event is being offered three times at 9:00 AM ET, 12:00 Noon ET, and 4:00 PM ET.   Read more...

In this article by Neil Weicher, he talks about encryption of data and files for SQL Server.   Read more...

Andy Warren started his worst practice series some time ago with the intention of looking at the worst things you can do. Given that we may not always be able to implement the best practices, at least we can try to avoid doing things harm the system or decrease performance. This article continues the series and looks at an item I see mentioned in our discussion forum quite often, triggering external events. From a trigger.   Read more...

Adding a column is one of the simpler tasks you'll ever do as a DBA, yet danger lurks! All too often we add columns without going through some type of check list to make sure we're safe. What could adding a column break? You might be surprised!   Read more...

This article presents two best practices. One is about how to construct good table aliases, the other is about using ANSI join syntax. Good stuff!   Read more...