Articles

External Article

Improving the Quality of SQL Server Database Connections in the Cloud

To access SQL Server from the client, you use TDS protocol over TCP. This is fine over reliable LANs but over the internet these connections are relatively slow and fragile. TDS is still used to connect to databases in the cloud, but you need to use a combination of the new features such as connection pools and idle connection resiliency to make applications faster and more reliable. Edward Elliott shows you how.

2014-10-07

8,227 reads

External Article

Ninja Immutable Databases

'Immutable' databases operate under the principle that data or objects should not be modified after they are created. Once again they hold the promise of providing strong consistency combined with horizontal read scalability, and built-in caching. Are Immutable databases a new idea? Are they different in any way from the mainstream RDBMSs?

2014-10-03

9,305 reads

External Article

Protect Confidential SQL Server Data Q and A

Following on from a webcast, Tim Smith answers some questions on SQL Server security like: Is It Better To Mask At the Application Level Or The SQL Server Database Level? Are there any options to find SSNs in SQL Server besides RegEx? And, why would anyone store sensitive data un-encrypted in SQL Server?

2014-10-02

8,457 reads

External Article

Filling In Missing Values Using the T-SQL Window Frame

Since SQL Server delivered the entire range of window functions, there has been far less justification for using the non-standard ex-Sybase 'Quirky Update' tricks to perform the many permutations of running totals in SQL Server. One of these related problems is the 'Data Smear'. Do window functions make this easier, and what is performance like? Dwain Camps investigates.

2014-10-01

11,294 reads

Blogs

Who’s the Winningest Coach (with AI Help)

By

I was listening to the radio the other day and the hosts were discussing...

Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194

By

We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...

Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art

By

I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Basic Always On Groups Randomly Stop Synchronizing

By Leo.Miller

In one of my environments I have 3 pairs of Always On SQL 2022...

Learning From Breakage

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Learning From Breakage

Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy

By sabyda

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Python in Action to Auto-Generate...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Adding and Dropping Columns I

I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database: 

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList]
(
[CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1),
[CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
I decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use?

See possible answers