The Cloud in Large IT Shops
There are a lot of advantages for small companies in using cloud services, but is that the case for large IT groups? Steve Jones has a few thoughts.
T-SQL insert using SSIS Data Pump
This article describes a T-SQL procedure to insert data using the SSIS Data Pump
Partitioning in SQL Server - Part 3
Arshad Ali provides a step-by-step guide to create a partitioned table/index.
SQL Intersection in Las Vegas This Spring
Come join Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey and an amazing lineup of speakers at the spring SQL Intersection conference in Las Vegas, April 8-11, 2013. Register now and you get a Surface RT tablet.
DBA Hypochondria
It is easy to become overwhelmed by server symptoms (aka metrics), in the forlorn hope that the more we collect, the clearer a picture we'll assemble of what ails the server. We should, of course, be looking at the whole patient.
Using the Data Profiling SQL Server Integration Services SSIS task
Have you ever had to write a bunch of TSQL to do some data analysis on the table data in your database. If you have you'll know that this can become a fairly time consuming and tedious task? SQL Server 2012 Integration Services has a feature called the Data Profiling task that can help you perform this analysis much easier and faster (this feature is also available in SQL Server 2008). This task can help you find potential issues with your existing data as well as help you become more familiar with the data in a database that you have just started managing.
Baselines
It can be hard to analyze performance without a baseline. This week, Steve Jones asks how you might use your baseline to better determine what problems you are having with your SQL Server.
Join Operations – Nested Loops
This is part I of III in a series on the physical join operators in SQL Server.
Silent Truncation of SQL Server Data Inserts
There are certain circumstances where SQL Server will silently truncate data, without providing an error or warning, before it is inserted into a table. In this tip we cover some examples of when this occurs.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Want to look at cloud reporting but not sure what the costs will be?
By ChrisJenkins
Have you been thinking about migrating your reporting to Microsoft Fabric or Snowflake but...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
BIT_COUNT I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT I
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers