With SSIS, it is possible to implement looping logic into SSIS's control flow in order to define a repeating workflow in a package for each member of a collection of objects. Rob Sheldon explains how to use this valuable feature of SSIS.
2012-05-18
3,850 reads
A customer provides an SQL Server Analysis Services trace file to analyze. You save this file into a trace table and execute T-SQL code to analyze the results. Rather than getting descriptive values for the EventClass and EventSubclass data, you get numerical values. How do you resolve these numerical values to meaningful descriptive names? Check out this tip to learn more.
2012-05-17
2,275 reads
Arshad Ali discusses the details of creating reports with indicators and gauges in SQL Server 2008 and walks you through designing a one tablix report with two levels of grouping.
2012-05-16
3,124 reads
Shawn McGehee discusses partial backups, how they're used, and how to avoid potential problems when restoring from a partial backup.
2012-05-15
3,016 reads
Snapshot isolation levels improve performance but there are some things to take into consideration when using this feature. Arshad Ali discusses what snapshot isolation levels are, their variants, and why and when we should use them.
2012-05-14
4,253 reads
Despite the neglect of the basic ODBC drivers over the years, they still afford a neat way of reading from, and writing to, CSV files; and to be able to do so in SQL as if they were tables is somewhat magical. Just to prove it is possible, Phil Factor creates a CSV version of AdventureWorks as a linked server.
2012-05-11
5,604 reads
I have data in a SQL Server database that I need to get to an older version of SQL Server. I tried the backup and restore method, but received an error indicating that this wasn't allowed. I also tried to detach and attach the database, but that operation failed too. I understand that typical methods I use to move the database around don't work when I have to work with an earlier SQL Server version. What can I do to get the data out? This is a simple database and I want to spend a minimal amount of effort.
2012-05-10
3,518 reads
SQL Server Reporting Services provides several ways to analyze the data; a few of them are creating reports with indicators and Gauges. Indicators are minimal gauges that convey the state of a single data value at a glance and are mostly used to represent the state value of Key Performance Indicator (KPI, a measurable value which has business significance with a specific target or goal that indicates whether things are going good or bad).
2012-05-09
3,573 reads
When writing T-SQL, a lot of developers use either COALESCE or ISNULL in order to provide a default value in cases where the input is NULL. The two functions do have quite different behavior and it is important to understand the qualitative differences between them when using them in your code.
2012-05-08
9,869 reads
The Term 'Big Data' is nothing more than a fad, and we'll soon be cringing with embarrassment at the thought that we ever used it. However, the data, and the challenges to processing it that it presents, will stay with us. If jargon like 'Big Data' helps us focus on the problems, then let’s use it: temporarily, perhaps.
2012-05-07
3,718 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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