Database Upgrade to SQL Server 2008 Tools and Approaches

Performing an upgrade is a complex and often risky project. A successful upgrade can provide an organization with a modern platform for development and production. An unsuccessful upgrade can cause lost time and money, and it can create a bad perception for the future.

This paper documents approaches and tools that can help DBAs and developers to achieve successful and mostly painless upgrade of SQL Server databases from Microsoft® SQL Server® 2000 or SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 (or SQL Server 2008 R2).

Implementing SSIS Package Configurations

Marcin Policht demonstrates how to leverage SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package variables in order to modify SSIS properties without directly editing package content.

Making your database changes backward compatible: Changing a relationship

Let's face it: requirements change. There is usually a lot of churn during the design and initial development stages, but changes can happen to mature applications, too. The key is to introduce those changes with the least amount of effort and risk.

Database Source Control- The Crib Sheet

As part of our long-running Cribsheet series, we asked William to come up with a brief summary of what was involved in bringing database development work under source control. What are the advantages it brings, and are there disadvantages?

New Features in Reporting Services 2008 and 2008 R2

Quietly, Microsoft has been making radical improvements to Reporting Services; but precisely what was introduced, and when? We asked Bill Pearson, the well-known BI expert, to come up with a definitive survey of the more recent changes and how they help the user of Reporting Services.

UPDATE Basics in SQL Server

SQL Server's UPDATE statement is apparently simple, but complications such as the FROM clause can cause puzzlement. Bob Sheldon starts simply, and introduces the more complex forms painlessly.

Dynamic Data Driven Variable Hierarchical Structures in SQL

This article describes data driven variable structure generation in SQL. The controlling data can be located higher up on the hierarchical pathway or can be located further down on the pathway producing a look-ahead operation. Multiple pathways can independently produce dynamic data driven structures and these dynamic structures can be nested allowing a very flexible and powerful dynamic automatic data structure generation capability. These different controls of structure generation can be combined.

Issues with running DBCC SHRINKFILE on your data files

Why would database performance remain low and fragmentation high event though the entire database has been defragmented every night? In this tip we cover how SHRINKFILE works and some of the issues it might create.

SQL Server CRUD-Generation from System Views

If you are not keen on repetitive typing, you can still rapidly produce production-quality documented code by planning ahead and using Extended properties, and system views. Phil Factor explains, with some Scary SQL

Oracle to SQL Server, Crossing the Great Divide, Part 3

We soon learn, in SQL Server, that heaps are a bad thing, without necessarily understanding how or why. Jonathan Lewis is an Oracle expert who doesn't like to take such strictures for granted, especially when they don't apply to Oracle. Jonathan discovers much about how SQL Server places data, and concludes from his experiments that heaps perform badly in SQL Server because you cannot specify a fill factor for them.