Additional Articles

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Technical Article

Slow in the Application, Fast in SSMS? Understanding Performance Mysteries

When I read various forums about SQL Server, I frequently see questions from deeply mystified posters. They have identified a slow query or stored procedure in their application. They cull the SQL batch from the application and run it in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to analyse it, only to find that the response is instantaneous. At this point they are inclined to think that SQL Server is all about magic. A similar mystery is when a developer has extracted a query in his stored procedure to run it stand-alone only to find that it runs much faster – or much slower – than inside the procedure.

2011-03-07

5,326 reads

External Article

Look-up Tables in SQL

Lookup tables can be a force for good in a relational database. Whereas the 'One True Lookup Table' remains a classic of bad database design, an auxiliary table that holds static data, and is used to lookup values, still has powerful magic. Joe Celko explains....

2011-03-04

7,435 reads

External Article

How To Use Regular Expressions for Data Validation and Cleanup

You need to provide data validation at the server level for complex strings like phone numbers, email addresses, etc. You may also need to do data cleanup / standardization before moving it from source to target. Although SQL Server provides a fair number of string functions, the code developed with these built-in functions can become complex and hard to maintain or reuse.

2011-03-03

15,100 reads

External Article

How to reduce MDX code redundancy in SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)

To query an Analysis Services cube, MDX is used as the query language. In most business settings, one would find a set of queries that are common across a number of user query requirements. To cater to this, even with a modest size IT team, there is a good chance that the same queries are developed redundantly either within a SSAS MDX script or repetitively in an ad-hoc manner in client applications. In this tip we would look at how to reuse queries without redeveloping them over and over.

2011-03-01

3,774 reads

External Article

Retrieving SQL Server Fixed Database Roles for Disaster Recovery

We ran into a case recently where we had the logins and users scripted out on my SQL Server instances, but we didn't have the fixed database roles for a critical database. As a result, our recovery efforts were only partially successful. We ended up trying to figure out what the database role memberships were for that database we recovered but we'd like not to be in that situation again. Is there an easy way to do this?

2011-02-23

3,104 reads

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Question of the Day

UNISTR Basics

What does this code return in SQL Server 2025+? (assume the database has an appropriate collation) 

SELECT UNISTR('Hello 4E16754C') AS 'A Classic';
A:   B:  

See possible answers