The Microsoft SQL Server product group are evaluating how to better assist with your SQL Server upgrades. With the upcoming SQL Server 2005 extended support deadline fast approaching, they want to understand how to help you migrate to a modern, supported version of SQL Server, and how to provide support and upgrades in future.
2015-07-17
5,452 reads
By reading performance counters from services such as SQL Server or Exchange, you can get a wealth of performance information. By automating the process of gathering and storing appropriate counters, you can routinely check a range of devices quickly using visual tools such as PerfMon. By then creating your own counters, you can add counter-based metrics to anything that can be measured programmatically, such as services, applications, processes such as ETL, or deployments. Nicolas Prigent shows you how.
2015-07-16
3,880 reads
SQL Server 2016 introduces a new security feature called Dynamic Data Masking (DDM). This tip describes its purpose, shows a brief example of how it works, lists some limitations, and notes how the feature has already changed since CTP 2.0 was first released in May.
2015-07-15
2,728 reads
NULLs in SQL are a mixed blessing. The Three-Valued Logic of SQL has its uses but can cause difficulties to anyone who assumes that NULL has a 'value'. It can make reports go horribly wrong in a number of alarming ways, as Robert Sheldon explains.
2015-07-14
8,842 reads
With another entry in his knee-jerk series on wait statistics, Paul Randal (@PaulRandal) explains CXPACKET and why it may or may not be a problem.
2015-07-13
3,180 reads
Aaron Bertrand compares multiple date formatting techniques, demonstrating again that SQL Server's FORMAT() is not worth the convenience.
2015-07-10
5,834 reads
In-Memory OLTP is a high performance, memory-optimized engine integrated into SQL Server 2014 and designed for modern hardware trends. In-Memory OLTP allows users to move data into memory resident tables while keeping other data in traditional, disk-based table structures.
2015-07-09
3,186 reads
One of the downsides of learning a new computer language is that transfer of training doesn't always work to your advantage. In fact, the habits you picked up in the past may now cause confusion. In this poster or wall-chart for long walls, Michael Sorens selects the thirty-six most common causes of confusion for anyone getting to grips with PowerShell.
2015-07-08
4,984 reads
I want to temporarily use a Log Shipped secondary database for Read Only operations, but Log Shipping was not configured for read only operations. I don't want to reconfigure Log Shipping, so is there a way to do this without redoing Log Shipping.
2015-07-07
3,197 reads
It often pays to use a tool like R, in conjunction with a relational database, to quickly perform a range of analyses, and graphs, in order to ensure that you're answering the right question, to explore alternative hypotheses, or to provide insight into a problem. Feodor demonstrates how to quickly, and interactively, explore the ways that customers purchase goods and services using cohort analysis.
2015-07-06
2,364 reads
By Steve Jones
This was Redgate in 2010, spread across the globe. First the EU/US Here’s Asia...
By John
Today is Christmas and while I do not expect anybody to actual be reading...
By Bert Wagner
Until recently, my family's 90,000+ photos have been hidden away in the depths of...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item UNISTR Escape
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Celebrating Tomorrow
In SQL Server 2025, I run this command:
SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C\3068 and good night', '*') as "A Classic";
What is returned? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
A: 
B: 
C: 
See possible answers