When I get stumped I ….

I work with a reasonably large team of DBAs.  There are 9 of us and we support not only 70+...

DBMail on a cluster

I’ve always found clusters a pain in the neck.  For my latest pain I just spent the last 2 days...

Using a TVP instead of Dynamic SQL to pass a list into a SP

A couple of days ago I read Steve Jones’ blog on creating a user defined table type.  This reminded me...

Funny results from OPTIMIZE FOR AD HOC WORKLOADS

I recently turned on OPTIMIZE FOR AD HOC WORKLOADS for the first time on one of my servers.  When I...

GO Part 2

EXECUTE AS USER = ‘Somebody else’

As a database administrator I get lots of security requests. “Please grant me read authority on this table, write on that table,...

GO Part 1

sp_helptext

My manager has been quietly laughing under his breath at me for years. Usually because I much prefer queries and...

At Startup SSMS setting

I came across this handy dandy little setting earlier this year.  It was well hidden from me, by which I...

keyword DEFAULT

In 12 years of working with SQL it was only last year that I came across the keyword DEFAULT and...