What's SQLServerCental.com All About
With some recent hubub and questions, Steve Jones decided to spend a few moments welcoming everyone to the community and give some background on what this site is all about.
2004-12-07
4,199 reads
Articles
Scheduled MS Cluster Failovers using Automation Server Objects
SQL Server clusters are great tools to ensure that your servers are highly available. However there are some times when you'll want to manually perform a failover for testing, maintenance, etc. New author Anthony Bressi brings you a technique and code to allow you to use VB 6.0 to build a small program to automatically do this.
2004-12-06
4,902 reads
Worst Practices - Part 1 of a Very Long Series!
Andy starts a new series about Worst Practices - come find out why and read about the first one on his list - using Hungarian Notation for column names!
2004-12-03 (first published: 2001-10-09)
34,400 reads
An Enterprise-Class Plan for Securing Microsoft SQL Server Databases
If you are running Microsoft SQL Server databases to support critical enterprise applications, you are part of a growing trend. The cost/performance benefits of Microsoft SQL Server on the Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 platforms have fueled the growth of SQL Server as a platform for enterprise-class applications.
2004-12-03
1,871 reads
All About Transactions - Part 3
Transactions in SQL Server are probably no more complicated than those in other RDBMS products, which is to say they are fairly complex. Don Peterson continues with part 3 of his series and takes a look at transaction isolation levels and how they interact with multiple connections and their impact on locking.
2004-12-02
15,950 reads
MDX Essentials: Logical Functions: The IsEmpty() Function
This is the twenty-fifth article of the series, MDX Essentials. The series is designed to provide hands-on application of the fundamentals of the Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) language, with each tutorial progressively adding features designed to meet specific real-world needs.
2004-12-02
1,698 reads
Unifed Database Toolkit - Connection Definition
SQL Server 2000 is easy to administer relative to other RDBMS, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Author Andre Vigneau has built a database toolkit to allow him to manage his cross platform databases. This is the second article in his series and deals with establishing connections to any database platform.
2004-12-01
5,407 reads
Submitting A Stored Procedure Asynchronously
Have you ever wondered if you could start the execution of a stored procedure (SP) asynchronously from some T-SQL code? What I mean is starting the SP in the background and continuing on with the next line of code in your T-SQL script without waiting for the execution of the SP to complete. If so, then this article might be of some interest to you.
2004-12-01
3,279 reads
Moving System Databases - A Checklist
The default location for the SQL Server system databases doesn't always meet the standards of many organizations. Author Chris Hedgate has taken the time to put together a short checklist on how you can move the master, msdb, model, and tempdb databases easily.
2004-11-30
21,856 reads
"sysperfinfo" in SQL Server
The system table, "sysperfinfo," is the representation of the internal performance counters of SQL Server. This article demonstrates how to retrieve and store information from "sysperfinfo" to a CSV file, so that it can be analyzed.
2004-11-30
3,347 reads
Blogs
KDA: Echoes of Deception - Case 7
By Zikato
A fugitive cyber-criminal, a wingsuit, and 24 million flight records. Somewhere between Doha and...
Do This Before You Contact Your SQL Server Consultant
Say you need outside help. You’ve exhausted all the things that you could do...
Microsoft MVP 2026: Ten Years on the Data Platform
I’m honored to announce that I’ve been renewed as a Microsoft MVP for the...
Forums
Implicit Conversions Cripple SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Implicit Conversions Cripple SQL Server
BIT_COUNT() III
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT() III
The Mythical Bus Accident
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Mythical Bus Accident
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT() III
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code:
select bit_count(-1)What is returned? See possible answers