Sometimes, you have to test out alternative indexing strategies, but the task of creating the candidate indexes would just take too long. Is there another way? Well, yes, why not use the same method the DTA (Database Tuning Advisor) uses, and take the tedium out of the job.
2013-01-22
3,343 reads
Despite NTEXT and TEXT being deprecated in SQL Server for some time they are still both used in production systems. In this article, I will briefly demonstrate the difference between a VARCHAR (MAX), NVARCHAR (MAX) and the NTEXT data types, and the impact on performance from using NTEXT/TEXT.
2013-01-21
6,201 reads
Multi-select parameters give your users control over their reports while reducing the number of reports they have to work with. This example demonstrates how to create a multi-select parameter list and pass the values to a stored procedure that will then populate the report.
2013-01-18
4,259 reads
The error handling of SQL Server has always been somewhat mysterious. Now at last, the THROW statement has been included in SQL Server 2012 that, when combined with the TRY...CATCH block, makes error handling far easier. Robert Sheldon explains all.
2013-01-17
8,709 reads
Following on from the previous TSQL performance tuning article in this series, we now focus on the important topic of T-SQL “Not IN” And “Not Exists “
2013-01-16
7,301 reads
We often need to create similar SSIS packages which contain some common components such as connection managers, data flow components, log providers, event handlers, etc... So do we really need to create a package from scratch each time and add all these commonly used components in each package again and again. Is it possible to create a SSIS package with a basic structure/workflow and common components which can be used as template to create subsequent packages?
2013-01-15
3,372 reads
Developing a backup procedure that makes sure you can do restores should be one of your top priorities as a DBA. In this article Greg Larsen discusses some of the concepts to consider when developing, building and testing a backup strategy.
2013-01-14
3,298 reads
When creating pie charts using data from Analysis Services, having the MDX query calculate and return the percentages along with the counts or sums is extremely efficient. In this tip, we walk through an example of how this can be done.
2013-01-11
3,709 reads
A UDF is very convenient for centralising business logic as we can specify a set of business logic in one UDF which references multiple stored procedures and ad-hoc queries. However, they can lead to significant performance degradation due to their demands on the CPU
2013-01-10
4,126 reads
I saw your recent tip on Calculating Mathematical Values in SQL Server and have some related issues as I try to round values in my application. My users and me have a difference of opinion on some of the calculations in our reporting applications. All of the code is in T-SQL, but I think the reporting issues are related to data types and rounding down or rounding up rules. Do you have any insight into these issues? I would like to see some examples with a variety of coding options.
2013-01-09
3,694 reads
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
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