My thought is more like a question. Why can't more features and functionality be added to SQL language and stop creating more languages to learn? If not, let's all...

Thanks, Steve.

Wow.  I guess I'd not worry about anything else until those backup issues were fixed.

Thanks for the list.  Always interesting to what what sp_Blitz ferrets out.

Reporting servers are just moving the problem.  People will complain on the reporting servers unless you fix the primary performance issue... which almost always boils down to (borrowing some emphasis...

Thanks fr posting your code, Aaron.  Good to see someone else using the "Union All" trick to get the zero value (it's also what I use) but I still have...

For anyone interested in MS building such a function into T-SQL, please see the following thread.  It used to have 278 votes until MS moved the "Connect" system...

Heh... more "new site" sucking sounds.  The fnTally script that was recently published and nearly 4,000 reads and 9 votes yesterday.  Today, it says it's only had a little over...

Heh... having this posted as a script has already started to pay off for me not only in a couple of posts on this forum but also on the "Azure...

IMHO, you are on the right path.  I'm currently doing exactly what you described.  Importing flat, delimited files to a 'staging' table where all fields are...

it is especially useful, if you need a table to be online all the time, but want to load lots of data to it (e.g. full reload). Then you...

Post deleted... misread a response.

So long as it's not "AutoShrink", DBCC SHRINKDB, or DBCC SHRINKFILE (especially since they don't affect backup size).

p.s.  The essential key for me was learning how to make a shedload of test data in virtually any form I needed it.  When it come to performance, you need...

Totally agree with Grant.  I don't care for the certification alphabet soup a lot of people have after their names because too many of them have gamed the system to...

That's all good but you made it sound like you were suggesting that keys (in general) were allowed to be mutable.  There are some rare cases where AKs (Alternate Keys)...