SQL Saturday #172 - Washington, D.C.
A free day of training in the US nation's capital. Come join in if you are nearby.
Stairway to Server-side Tracing - Level 10: Profiler versus Server-Side tracing
Compares and contrasts tracing using Profiler with server-side tracing, illustrating important performance differences so that one can choose the right tool for the task at hand.
Auditing SQL Server 2012 Server Roles
My organization is looking at SQL Server 2012 and I know that the ability to create roles at the server level is a new feature. Since this is new and impacts security, how do I handle them and how do I audit them?
Don't Explain Too Much
Having management get too involved in technical details can cause problems. Steve Jones notes that technical people should minimize the details when communicating with management.
Database Deployment: The Bits - Getting Data In
Quite often, the database developer or tester is faced with having to load data into a newly created database. What could be simpler? Quite a lot of things, it seems.
Free eBook: The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team-based Development
Get a free ebook that discusses how you can better manage your team development.
Advanced Event Behavior – Level 10 of the Stairway to Integration Services
The tenth article of this series starts to look at more advanced events and how we can use those events to better control and enhance our packages.
Regulators, Mount Up
If you are bound by HIPAA regulations, you may have more auditing in your future. If you're not, perhaps you should still pay attention to the criteria being used for auditing.
What MAXDOP Setting Should be Used for SQL Server
I have a busy SQL Server and notice that several queries are running in parallel. I know I can set the max degree of parallelism setting, but what MAXDOP should I use?
Targeted Learning
Today Steve Jones says your learning should have a plan. He uses an example from a recent conference where one motivated attendee came with a plan.
Blogs
My Social Media Rules
By Brian Kelley
I developed these rules a while back, before COVID. I had a period of...
Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL...
A Guatemalan's Guide to Drinking Coffee Properly
My mugI grew up surrounded by coffee farms in Guatemala and somehow spent most...
Forums
Partitioning a table with TEXTIMAGE_ON option
I have a table that ends in ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]. I'm about to...
OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Building Great Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Great Software
Question of the Day
The Range of Customers
I have this data in the OrderHeader table in a SQL Server 2025 database (ordered by CustomerID ASC):
orderid orderdate customerid complete 3 2025-05-10 00:00:00.0002 1 21 2024-01-10 00:00:00.0003 1 15 2023-10-28 00:00:00.0004 1 13 2025-03-08 00:00:00.0006 1 11 2024-04-02 00:00:00.0007 1If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT * from dbo.OrderHeader where customerid between 3 and '6'See possible answers