Managing the "Surface Area" of SQL Server 2005

As every developer knows by now, Microsoft has focused renewed attention on security in recent product releases. One of the important concepts in this effort is surface area. Roughly speaking, a piece of software has a smaller surface area if there are fewer ways to attack it: fewer open ports, fewer APIs, fewer protocols, and so on. OSQL Server 2005 takes this concept to the next level by letting you explicitly manage the software's surface area.

Program Microsoft SQL Server CE 2.0 Merge Replication Using .NET Compa

In this exercise, you will use the .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server CE to configure merge replication, build an application user interface, subscribe to a SQL Server publication, modify and synchronize data, and resolve conflicts.

Using Ranking and Windowing Functions in SQL Server 2005

SQL Server 2005 is chock full of new features. You may have heard that you can write stored procedures in a CLR language like C# or VB .NET, but TSQL is here to stay. One new great feature adds the functionality of a Ranking expression that can be added to your result set that is based on a ranking algorithm being applied to a column that you specify. This will come in handy in .NET applications for paging and sorting in a grid as well as many other scenarios. We are going to take a look at the Ranking functions new to SQL Server 2005 using the new AdventureWorks database on the February 2005 Community Tech Preview.

Maintained by man and dog

As the online news service called NewsScape moves into its sixth year, it exhibits a lot of the characteristics of a child at the same age: It has a huge appetite for information, grows by leaps and bounds each year, and makes those who oversee it wonder if they can maintain control as it gets bigger. It is maintained by "a man and a dog – an aging golden retriever named Sambucus," according to the man, Andrew Clarke.

SQL Server 2000 Backup and Restore

This paper discusses the types of backups that are available in SQL Server 2000 and how backup functionality can be used in a disaster recovery plan. It includes general recommendations on how to improve backup and restore throughput and several case scenarios.

Extending Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services with Custom Cod

This article presents an excerpt from the book, Microsoft Reporting Services in Action, by Teodor Lachev. Learn how to implement advanced report functionality using custom code.

Deliver User-Friendly Reports from Your Application with SQL Server Re

Flexible reporting capabilities are a requirement for most business applications and their integration into Web apps makes them more versatile than ever. With the recent release of SQL Server™ 2000 Reporting Services, you can easily add reporting from diverse data sources. In this article I will introduce report authoring using Visual Studio® and Reporting Services and demonstrate how to integrate reports into your Web applications.

Reporting Services is a server-based reporting platform that is built on the .NET Framework and integrated with SQL Server 2000, so you can integrate rich reporting features into your apps using an extensive Web services-based API. Although the report server uses SQL Server as the repository for reports, any data source with an OLE DB, ODBC, or ADO.NET provider can be used to supply data to the reports, making Reporting Services a great choice for reporting in diverse enterprise environments.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to patch SQL Server

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So you've decided to secure your SQL Server infrastructure and you don't know where to start. This first guide in a two-part series on SQL Server patch deployment will help you track down those pesky servers before getting them properly patched.

SQL Servers represent a significant security challenge for a number of reasons. Primarily, they are ubiquitous. Hundreds of software packages use SQL Server as a data store as do a large number of commercial websites.

Anatomy of an IT disaster: How the FBI blew it

Some FBI agents ruefully refer to the trilogy project, a massive initiative to modernize the FBI's aging technology infrastructure, as the "Tragedy" project. It certainly has all the earmarks of tragedy: the best intentions, catastrophic miscommunication, staggering waste.

SQL Server 2005 Editions and Integration Services

The SQL Server 2005 product family has now been announced, so with four editions available, what does this mean for SQL Server Integration Services? Starting from the bottom we have the free edition known as Express, and the entry level Workgroup edition, and neither include the full IS product. They have the Import/Export capabilities, but nothing more, so for simple loading and extraction of data this should suffice, but you will not be able to build packages.