Jim, my experience is that you will rarely get isolated pockets of woes.

If you don't like the SQL then a good developer will find that the code is wonky. ...

I've just spent two days fighting something similar importing a text file.

I found that adding a data conversion component did work, but turned a simple import of 1.6 million rows...

@jason, that is a very good point. Under the UK data protection act an individual can ask that their records be removed in certain conditions. Imagine having to...

My first task in my first IT job was to take a lump hammer to a set of Wang minicomputer hard disks!

Probably my first experience of job satisfaction.

From a developer perspective the NOSQL databases do cool stuff and make the developers task of interacting with data much simpler.

The boring stuff that makes it all work is the...

Actually, having been given Aquafold Data Studio to play with I think SSMS needs to take a good hard look at multi-platform integration.

I've got to look at MySQL, HP Vertica,...

A sophisticated full-text search with sophisticated phonetic matching capability would go down a treat.

Being able to deploy onto Linux would be fantastic.

A formal metadata and lineage facility that takes into...

I'd make the point that being a DBA is a mindset as much as a set of technical skills.

Is the need for the mindset getting any less? I'd argue...

I'm obviously reading this editorial differently to the rest of you. I'm not reading it as an attempt by management to scam employees to do ever more for ever...

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There's your problem. Perhaps testing the product at expected volumes would have exposed this shortcoming. The company's refusal to adapt and correct an obvious flaw would automatically generate an RFP...

Fragmentation

Fullness of files and prediction for when we will have to grow them. We don't want autogrowth in large production systems we like to plan it.

Absence of...

It's not just Excel, it's BI in general.

Does BI development go through the same rigour that application development has to? I seriously doubt it!

Excel is particularly prone because its...

I always do the best I can do within the constraints I am given. If it is time and resource constraints and I know that these are not sufficient...

This works fine in favourable business conditions. The true test comes in difficult times where difficult and unpopular decisions are needed.

Committees aren't great at setting directions. The best...

I saw a blog on the Brent Ozar website where his minimum spec for a quad core 2CPU box was 96GB RAM and 2xSSD drives. The charge of over-speccing...