Absolutely (Not?)
For this Friday's poll, Steve Jones asks about what absolutes you might have in your job.
2008-10-23
68 reads
Articles
Audit data using SQL Server 2005's COLUMNS_UPDATED function
Auditing data changes in your production environment is very important, especially if you are dealing with confidential information.
2008-10-23
4,223 reads
Auto generated SQL Server keys - uniqueidentifier or IDENTITY
I'm designing a table and I've decided to create an auto-generated primary key value as opposed to creating my own scheme or using natural keys. I see that SQL Server offers globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) as well as identities to create these values. What are the pros and cons of these approaches?
2008-10-23
5,803 reads
Fast Project Rollbacks
When a project is completed, one of the next steps is to roll this project out to the production environment. However a good rollback process is important to ensure that you can remove those changes if there are problems. Longtime author David Poole talks about how he handles this.
2008-10-22
3,967 reads
A Virtual Database World
Steve Jones talks about virtualization with databases, but not in the way you might think.
2008-10-22
71 reads
A Virtual Database World
Steve Jones talks about virtualization with databases, but not in the way you might think.
2008-10-22
76 reads
A Virtual Database World
Steve Jones talks about virtualization with databases, but not in the way you might think.
2008-10-22
57 reads
Filtered Indexes in SQL Server 2008
This article demonstrates the performance improvements that can be achieved using Filtered Indexes in SQL server 2008
2008-10-22
2,688 reads
Tips for tuning SQL Server 2005 to improve reporting performance
We are required to report from our SQL Server 2005 database. There are five or six tables regularly used for holding the reporting data, but these tables have five-to-seven million rows of data in them already. We need to use these tables consistently and our performance involving reporting is struggling. Do you have any tips to help improve it?
2008-10-22
4,961 reads
Multi Select Parameters in SSRS - SQL School Video
Diving deeper into Reporting Services with this SQL School video, MVP Brian Knight shows how to create a report with a multi-select parameter, allowing the user to select multiple items for inclusion in the report.
2008-10-21
5,940 reads
Blogs
A New Word: Ecstatic Shock
By Steve Jones
ecstatic shock – n. a surge of energy upon catching a glimpse from someone...
The CDO’s Playbook for AI Driven Decision Making
By Chris Yates
The New Arena of Leadership The role of the Chief Data Officer is no...
sp_snapshot – The easy way to take database snapshots of one or more databases – V3.0
Presenting you with an updated version of our sp_snapshot procedure, allowing you to easily...
Forums
Arc Enabled SQL Server
Just saw the "Azure Extension for SQL Server" Does anyone has experience with it?...
Recursive Select - What is this really doing
I've noticed several instances of what looks like a recursive insert with the format:...
Cleaning Up the Cloud
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Cleaning Up the Cloud
Question of the Day
The Maximum Value in the Identity Column
I have a table with this data:
TravelLogID CityID StartDate EndDate 1 1 2025-01-01 2025-01-06 2 2 2025-01-01 2025-01-06 3 3 2025-01-01 2025-01-06 4 4 2025-01-01 2025-01-06 5 5 2025-01-01 2025-01-06I run this code:
SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('TravelLog')
I get the value 5 back. Now I do this:
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.TravelLog ON
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
TravelLogID,
CityID,
StartDate,
EndDate
)
VALUES
(25, 5, '2025-09-12', '2025-09-17')
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.TravelLog OFF
I now run this code.
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
CityID,
StartDate,
EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-10-14', '2025-10-17')
GO
What is the value for TravelLogID for the row I inserted for CityID 4 and dates starting on 14 Oct 2025?
See possible answers