Additional Articles


External Article

Deleting Files in the Cloud

The public perception is that, when something is deleted, it no longer exists. Often that's not really the case; the data you serve up to the cloud can be stored out there indefinitely, no matter how hard to try to delete it. Rob Sheldon investigates, and finds the cloud a worryingly public place.

2014-10-09

8,992 reads

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

External Article

Azure Diagnostics for Virtual Machines

Hosting a scalable application in Azure seems ideal, but what happens when things go wrong? Azure Cloud Services provide extensive diagnostics, and this feature has now been extended to Azure web sites and Azure Virtual Machines. You need to set up diagnostics on the VM, but once this is done, all your logs, traces and performance counters can be collected from many VMs in one place for easy management.

2014-09-29

7,986 reads

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Question of the Day

The String Distance I

In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:

SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('Steve', 'Stan')
Assume preview features are enabled.

See possible answers