News From EAP Testing
Jonathan Allen takes a peak at the EAP release of SQL Prompt 6 and some of the cool new things you can do to speed up writing SQL.
2013-08-21
1,637 reads
Articles
Upgrading the GIS application and database.
In this article I will mention a specific issue that I experienced during my last GIS application and database upgrade.
2013-08-20
3,537 reads
Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2012
The columnstore index in SQL Server 2012 stores columns instead of rows, and is designed to speed up analytical processing and data-warehouse queries. Whilst columnstore indexes certainly do that effectively, they are not a universal panacea since there are a number of limitations on them. When used appropriately, they can reduce disk I/O and use memory more efficiently.
2013-08-20
3,335 reads
New SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Untrusted Foreign Keys
A foreign key points to a primary key that must exist in another table, for example, column X in Table 1 must also be present in Table 2. The key protects this link, and only valid data can be inserted in the foreign key column. An untrusted foreign key may threaten a database’s referential and data integrity.
2013-08-20
2,554 reads
SQL in the City Seminar Denver 2013 – SQL Development Seminar
Join Red Gate for a free seminar on September 27 (the day before SQL Saturday Denver). Steve Jones, SQL Server MVP and editor-in-chief of SQLServerCentral.com, will present best practices for SQL Server database development, in addition to showing Red Gate tools in action.
2013-08-20
1,406 reads
Implementing, loading and optimizing a Type 2 Slowly Changing Fact Table
This article shows how to implement a Slowly Changing Facts Table, how to overcome the problems encountered when using the MERGE statement to process the data and suggest a minimal set of indexes to aid data loading and quering.
2013-08-19
10,176 reads
The End of Privacy: Tragically Comical Edition
It’s hard to avoid privacy-based stories at the moment, with growing concern over government snooping and the limits of power. But where I’m based, in the UK, there’s a new, fully-privatised invasion of privacy. One marketing company has created an outdoor wi-fi basestation that grabs your phone’s MAC address as you pass, with the idea […]
2013-08-19
77 reads
SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services Partitioning Performance Demonstration
How much of an improvement in processing time can a simple SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) partitioning structure provide? Can you provide any examples? Does this processing time improvement only apply to the fact tables? Check out this tip to learn more.
2013-08-19
4,512 reads
Data Science Laboratory System - Key/Value Pair Systems
Though the Key/Value pair paradigm is common to almost every computer language, there is no clear agreement yet for the definition of a Key/Value Pair database. However, Key/Value pair databases are valuable for special applications where speed of writing data is more important than searching and general versatility. Buck Woody experiments.
2013-08-16
3,457 reads
SSIS Deployments with SQL Server 2012
This article describes different methods for deploying your SSIS projects to a server.
2013-08-15
10,072 reads
Blogs
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
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...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
SSMS 22 still inserting tabs instead of spaces
I’m not trying to start up a debate whether you should use tabs or...
Forums
Cumulative Update 23 - KB5074819 - Database Mail - No longer working.
Hi there, Has anyone else had any trouble with Database Mail in Cumulative Update...
Script Task execution error with HTTP request
I have a script task that tries to execute a HTTP request, which seems...
SQL Server 2025 Standard Developer Edition
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Standard Developer...
Question of the Day
URL Safe or Not?
If I use BASE4_ENCODE() in SQL Server 2025, is the output URL Safe by default?
See possible answers