A database must be able to maintain and enforce the business rules and relationships in data in order to maintain the data model. It does this through referential constraints. They aren't complex, but are powerful, especially with the means to attach DRI actions to them. Joe Celko explains all, and pines for the ANSI CREATE ASSERTION statement.
2015-02-25
9,100 reads
PowerShell V2 introduces the "try-catch-finally" statements, similar to those you already use when you write .NET code. "Try-catch-finally" encloses a block of script that is likely to produce errors under specific circumstances and therefore helps you to keep your code organized. This article is a short usage guide for this error handling construct.
2015-02-24
8,518 reads
Performance tuning and optimization definitely have their place in minimizing SQL Server Licensing costs – by helping keep CPU utilization low. But it’s important to remember that the fastest and most efficient query possible is the one that you never execute against your SQL Server. That might sound trite, but it’s at the heart of caching – which is key to helping organizations save significant money on SQL Server licensing costs while simultaneously enabling better application performance and increased scalability.
2015-02-23
8,605 reads
When SQL Server 2014 was released, it included Hekaton, Microsoft’s much talked about memory-optimized engine that brings In-Memory OLTP into play. With memory-optimized tables 30 times faster than disk-based tables, higher performance is promised – but at what cost? Jonathan Watts looks at the features that have improved, and those that need careful consideration.
2015-02-20
10,562 reads
Daniel Calbimonte has written a code comparison for MariaDB vs. SQL Server as it pertains to how to comment, how to create functions and procedures with parameters, how to store query results in a text file, how to show the top n rows in a query, how to use loops, and more.
2015-02-19
13,038 reads
Containers promise to make applications more portable and efficient. The technology, originally based on Linux's cgroups, provides a way of running several applications as modular, platform-agnostic packages in isolation on the same server. Docker's open-source approach to containers has dominated the market, and Microsoft is producing its own equivalent Windows system. What next? Will Containers replace VMS? Robert Sheldon investigates.
2015-02-18
8,746 reads
SQL Server Express Edition does not include SQL Server Agent in order to schedule the SQL Server database backups. Here's how to automate the backups for SQL Server Express Edition and make sure the old backup files are deleted.
2015-02-17
10,685 reads
If your code uses temporary tables, variable tables or dynamic cursors, this metric can help identify whether you have contention on tempdb allocation. Tempdb is shared by all databases and is used for many operations in a SQL Server instance, so it is common for tempdb to cause performance problems.
2015-02-17
8,580 reads
Constructing a test environment for your databases can be a difficult task at the best of times. Once you’ve actually acquired the hardware needed and architected the environment, you still have to arrange and securely transport the data. And with the rising demand for fast feedback and continuously integrated processes, having all of this automated and operating at speed is a challenge all of its own.
2015-02-16
7,538 reads
You have a reporting requirement where a user has two or more parameters for a single report, but the values for one parameter depend on the values chosen in a previous parameter. Ghanesh Prasad explains how to create cascaded parameters in SQL Server Reporting Services to solve this issue.
2015-02-13
8,304 reads
Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day...
By Steve Jones
One of the things a customer asked recently about Redgate Data Modeler was how...
By Steve Jones
For a number of years, we’ve produced the State of the Database Landscape report,...
Hi all, I've just had to roll back my SSMS 22 version from 22.3.0,...
Hi! I've been banging my head against the wall for 2 days now trying...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Power of Data and...
In SQL Server 2025, there is a new function that returns the current date without the time. What is it?
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