Additional Articles


External Article

A Halloween Tale

A while back, in a Simple-Talk editorial meeting, someone bet Phil that he couldn't come up with a Halloween story. To our surprise he said he could, as long as he didn't have to keep to the strict literal truth.

2008-10-31

3,002 reads

External Article

Constraint Yourself!

In his first article for Simple-Talk, Joe Celko demystifies the use of Constraints, and points out that they are an intrinsic part of SQL and are a great way of ensuring that a business rule is done one way, one place, one time.

2008-10-30

2,846 reads

External Article

Database Mirroring adjusting the automatic failover time

One of the configuration options for Database Mirroring is the High Availability mode. With this option three servers are put in place the principal, mirror and witness servers. This is the only option that allows for automatic failover. One of the things that I have noticed is that when there are periodic network issues a failover occurs even though there are no issues with the Principal server. Are there any options to delay the failover?

2008-10-29

3,626 reads

External Article

Encryption Alternatives

Databases often contain sensitive information and cell-level encryption is a very effective method to protect this information from those who should not have access to it. Although, encryption is not without its challenges.

2008-10-29

3,815 reads

Technical Article

Help! My SQL Server Log File is too big!

Over the years, I have assisted so many different clients whose transactional log file has become "too large" that I thought it would be helpful to write about it. The issue can be a system crippling problem, but can be easily avoided. Today I'll look at what causes your transaction logs to grow too large, and what you can do to curb the problem.

2008-10-28

6,699 reads

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Question of the Day

Creating a JSON Document III

I have this data in a table called dbo.NFLTeams

TeamID  TeamName       City             YearEstablished
------  --------       ----             ---------------
1       Cowboys        Dallas           1960
2       Eagles         Philadelphia     1933
3       Packers        Green Bay        1919
4       Chiefs         Kansas City      1960
5       49ers          San Francisco    1946
6       Broncos        Denver           1960
7       Seahawks       Seattle          1976
8       Patriots       New England      1960
If I run this code, how many rows are returned?
SELECT TOP 2 
  json_objectagg('Team' : TeamName)
FROM dbo.NFLTeams;

See possible answers