This Stairway will provide you with a basic understanding of how to work with data from SQL Server tables, using SQL Server’s Transact-SQL (T-SQL) dialect. DML is the Data Manipulation Language, and is the aspect of the language dealing with the data. It includes the statements SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. This Stairway will as also provide some history of the SQL language and some general concepts about set theory. Each level will build upon the prior level, so by the time you are finished you will have a good understanding of how to select and modify data from SQL Server.   Read more...

Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) is the standard PowerPivot formula language that supports custom calculations in PowerPivot tables and Excel PivotTables. While many of the functions used in Excel are included, DAX also offers additional functions for carrying out dynamic aggregation and other operations with your data. Bill's new series serves as a progressive introduction to PowerPivot and DAX formulas, examining the functions, operators and values involved, and offering a wealth of practical examples.  Read more...

When things are going well, there is no need to be particularly conscious of what the Transaction log does or how it works. You just need to be confident that every database has the correct backup regime in place. When things go wrong, an understanding of the transaction log is important for taking corrective action, particularly when a point-in-time restore of a database is required, urgently! Tony Davis gives just the right level of detail that every DBA should know.  Read more...

IT projects can hit problems that turn out to be due to an insufficient understanding of the basic data and data-types, rather than the database design. It is a sorely neglected topic that might seem to be trivial, but certainly isn't. The DBA, with a broad perspective on corporate data can do a great deal to help application developers to avoid the common mistakes that so often happen, and Joe Celko's Stairway gives the busy IT professional a crash course to understanding the nature of the data being processed.  Read more...

Microsoft StreamInsight™ is designed to assist in developing Complex Event Processing (CEP) applications in .NET This is appropriate for stream sources tsuch as those in manufacturing applications or financial trading applications. StreamInsight provides the means to monitor, manage, and mine several sources simultaneously for conditions,trends, exceptions, opportunities, and defects almost instantly. It is ideal for performing low-latency analytics on the events and triggering response actions, and for mining historical data to continuously refine and improve definitions of alerting conditions. Johan provides a simple explanation of the system in a series of practical articles.  Read more...

New to the task of designing and creating a database? Joe Celko, who is one of the most widely read of all writers about SQL, explains the basics. As usual, he comes up with the occasional surprise for even the most seasoned database professional. Joe was the winner of the DBMS Magazine Reader's Choice Award four consecutive years. He has taught SQL in the US, UK, the Nordic countries, South America and Africa. He served 10 years on ANSI/ISO SQL Standards Committee and contributed to the SQL-89 and SQL-92 Standards.   Read more...

Integration Services is one of the most popular subsystems in SQL Server. In allows you to Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) data between a variety of data sources and programmatically change data in any manner you can think of and script in C#.  Read more...

Learn how to get started with Reporting Services in this easy to read series from MVP Jessica Moss that examines how you might start dealing with reporting requests from management.  Read more...

SQL Server Agent is at the heart of any live database system. The Agent has a number of uses which aren't always obvious, and so a knowledge of the system is always useful, to developers as well as DBAs. Richard Waymire provides a simple explanation of its many uses.  Read more...

Learn how to use the SQL Trace subsystem in SQL Server to audit your instances. This series will examine the basics of SQL Trace and teach you how to set up, schedule, and manage traces and the data generated.  Read more...

Indexes are fundamental to database design, and tell the developer using the database a great deal about the intentions of the designer. Unfortunately indexes are too often added as an afterthought when performance issues appear. Here at last is a simple series of articles that should bring any database professional rapidly 'up to speed' with them   Read more...

SQL Replication can solve many problems in running database-driven applications. The publication/subscriber model isn't completely easy to understand, the complexities of scripting and monitoring replication systems takes some thought. Here, at last, is a series of articles that takes care to produce a jargon-free approach to SQL Server Replication of all types.  Read more...

Unless you are working on a reporting-only application you will probably need to update tables in your SQL Server database. To update rows in a table you use the UPDATE statement. In this level we will be discussing how to find and update records in your database, and discuss the pitfalls you might run into when using the UPDATE statement.   Read more...

Examines the scale-out capabilities of SQL Server Agent, using the MSX/TSX subsystem. This capability allows you to run jobs on multiple systems and consolidate the job results/history onto a single server.  Read more...

Options and impacts when creating, altering and dropping an index  Read more...

How maintenance plans are used as SQL Server Agent jobs to automate standard system tasks. This article will also lay out some suggested jobs that should be on virtually all SQL Server systems.  Read more...

This level of the Stairway will cover the details of SQL Server transactional and merge replication, from understanding the basic terminology and methodology of setting up replication, to describing how it works and how the basic replication processes can be monitored.   Read more...

Internal and external fragmentation – Causes, cures, and when not to care  Read more...

In FULL recovery mode it is possible to do a point-in-time restore of a database. It is thankfully a rare event. Tony explains what's involved  Read more...

Examines the proxy subsystem, which allows job steps to impersonate another user account in order to perform tasks as a user other than the SQL Server Agent service account. This is especially useful when you want jobs to run as lower privileged users of your SQL Server.  Read more...