Case Sensitivity in Selects - Part 1

Your SQL Server has a case insensitive collation, but you need a case sensitive join? Do you know what happens? There are a couple options but do you know the performance implications of using each? Or a way to mitigate the performance degradation that can result?

You've just checked out a large number of...

Replication Gotcha - Columns with Defaults

Some days the simplest things go wrong. On this particular day Andy tried to remove a column that was part of an article in a transactional publication, wound up in an inconsistent state that required a snapshot to fix. Deeper investigation reveals the cause and a work around.

What's the difference between user_name() and suser_sname()?

Does setuser affect user_name()? Does it affect suser_sname()

Andy, where are you?

What happens when you have a day job, a web site, a new job at work, and a baby? Chaos! See what Andy's been up to the past few months. It's off topic from SQL of course, but it contains an interested bit or two.

Reducing Round Trips Part 4

The fourth and final installment in this series, this week Andy discusses how using XML can reduce the load you put on your network and on your server. This is a high level article that discusses concepts. We think you'll find a good idea or two in this one!

What You Don't Know

A very short article that discusses how nulls can ruin your day if you don't understand how they behave when you concatenate.

Help us Improve our Logo

Reader Rob Potter suggested that our logo could use some fine tuning and graciously submitted some ideas he had for doing just that. Come take a look and tell us what you think.

Worst Practice - Adding a Column Without Thinking!

Adding a column is one of the simpler tasks you'll ever do as a DBA, yet danger lurks! All too often we add columns without going through some type of check list to make sure we're safe. What could adding a column break? You might be surprised!