There is no "best" tool, there's what works for you and your situation. I can make a few suggestions.

Start treating your database like code. Check all the scripts into source...

Thanks to an article published here a few months back, I read a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. He's pretty ruthless with time management too. It's made...

Something like this will help get you going.

SELECT TOP (100)

a.CustCode

,a.COUNT(CustCode) CustCodeCount

FROM TableA a

GROUP BY a.CustCode

ORDER BY CustCodeCount DESC

I didn't use the other table becuase I don't see a need for...

I think it might depend on how selective the index is. Also, because you're updating the index values themselves, you might be seeing a lock on the index, not the...

Have you tried using aggregation yet? I'm pretty sure you'll need to use within a derived table, but if you can get the aggregated values first, you'll be on your...

OK. Although if that information was in the table it would be easier to query.

Regardless. What TSQL have you tried for getting the data together so far?

Greg Roberts (4/8/2009)

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No, the job overwrites the existing backup file. The file is backed up to tape by our netadmin @ ~Midnight.

Here are the job steps.

Step 1: Backup the...

Sounds like you did a backup to the same file without issuing INIT to reset it. So, it appended the backup to the file.

If you RESTORE HEADERONLY you should see...

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I meant that you must have another column of data in the tables that references date. How else will you determine that you...

There would need to be a bit more information in those tables. You can't really get data based on date without having stored some date information.

Once you have the date...

Run the RESTORE ... HEADERONLY. That will tell you all you need to know about the .BAK file itself. Then you can also run RESTORE... FILELISTONLY to get the file...

After you unzip the file you need to run a RESTORE command. If you're getting particular errors with the restore, please post them. If you're really unsure how to use...

I'm not aware of a formula that will do what you want, although if there is one, I'd suggest swinging by Adam Machanic's blog to look for it. By &...

Thanks. Good luck with the vendor.

Here's the basic way to do an insert into a table using a select. I'm using your code, so it'll be up to you to translate this:

INSERT INTO dbo.MyTable

(Column1

,Column2

,ColumnWhatever)

SELECT d.NewColumn1

,d.NewColumn2

,d.SomethingElse

FROM...