Change Tracking - 2008
Change tracking in SQL Server 2008 enables applications to obtain only changes that have been made to the user tables, along with the information about those changes.
The Certification Debate
Today's editorial was originally published on Aug 7, 2007. It is being re-run as Steve is on holiday. Is it worth getting certificated? Steve raises the question today.
The Redmond Agenda
Is there an agenda in Redmond that looks to the cloud first for new versions of the platforms? Steve Jones thinks if there is, it might be a good thing.
Using ASCMD to run command line scripts for SQL Server Analysis Services
Sometimes it would be helpful to run scripts from a command line for Analysis Services. This would be useful for things like creating backups, processing data or running other tasks. Is there a command line tool like sqlcmd for multidimensional databases and Data Mining?
Creating Indicator and Gauge Report in SSRS - SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server Reporting Services allows you to embed indicators and Gauges in your report to analyze the data and its state. Indicators are minimal gauges that convey the state of a single data value at a glance and are mostly used to represent state value of Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
After X Years
Dave Winer has been programming for a long time, and he plans on continuing for some time to come. Steve Jones talks about the important things Dave realizes and how we should also be considering them.
SSC Clinic: Can Implementing "Optimize for Ad Hoc Queries" Boost Performance for the SQLServerCentral.com and Simple-Talk.Com SQL Servers?
With the introduction of the instance-level option “optimize for ad hoc workloads” in SQL Server 2008, DBAs have a tool to deal with a problem known as plan cache pollution, or plan cache bloat. It’s often caused when one-time use ad hoc queries are sent to SQL Server from Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) solutions, such as LINQ, NHibernate, or Entity Framework. The problem can prevent SQL Server from using its available memory optimally, potentially hurting performance.
Stop Food Waste - OS Open Data & SQL Azure
An attempt to use Ordanance Survey OS Open Data, SQL Server and SharePoint in the construction of a system for supermarkets to supply expiring food to nearby homeless shelters.
SQL Server Prefetch and Query Performance
Prefetching can make a surprising difference to SQL Server query execution times where there is a high incidence of waiting for disk i/o operations, but the benefits come at a cost. Mostly, the Query Optimizer gets it right, but occasionally there are queries that would benefit from tuning.
A SSIS Design Pattern for Change Data Capture
The design pattern described in this article can be used to develop very efficient CDC operations in large scale implementations.
Blogs
Flyway Tips: AI Generating Migration Script Names
By Steve Jones
AI is a big deal in 2026, and at Redgate, we’re experimenting with how...
The Book of Redgate: Get the right stuff done
By Steve Jones
Another of our values: The facing page has this quote: “We admire people who...
Runing tSQLt Tests with Claude
By Ed Elliott
Running tSQLt unit tests is great from Visual Studio but my development workflow...
Forums
Introduction of OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY = ON
Hi, We have low latency high volume system. I have a table having 3...
The Long Name
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Long Name
Eight Minutes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Eight Minutes
Question of the Day
The Long Name
I run this code to create a table:
When I check the length, I get these results:
A table name is limited to 128 characters. How does this work?