Stack Ranking
This Friday Steve Jones talks performance reviews. The system in place at Microsoft is a tough one, which allows some to thrive, and some not to. Is it one you'd like to have in place?
Creating a Custom Report Template in SSRS
Arshad Ali shows you how to create standard/custom report templates in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), to ensure consistency throughout the organization in both the look and feel of reports.
Single User Performance of SQLite v. SQL Server
A look at the performance of SQL Server compared to SQLite for single user applications.
Using Technology In New Ways
An interesting reuse of technology in a completely new way caught Steve Jones' eye. See if you agree that this is rather amazing.
SSIS Basics: Adding Data Flow to Your Package
Annette continues her popular series for SSIS beginners by showing how a data flow task can be used in a package to move data from a SQL Server database to an Excel file, and insert an additional column into the Excel file that’s based on derived data.
Geeky Books
Today Steve Jones talks about one of his pastimes: reading. He recommends you read more, and share the books you enjoy.
Checksum Transformation
The Checksum Transformation computes a hash value, the checksum, across one or more columns, returning the result in the Checksum output column. The transformation provides functionality similar to the T-SQL CHECKSUM function, but is encapsulated within SQL Server Integration Services, for use within the pipeline without code or a SQL Server connection. As featured in The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit by Joy Mundy and Warren Thornthwaite from the Kimbal Group.
Time Zones
Today Steve Jones complains a bit about time zone support in SQL Server and why it seems so cumbersome. Shouldn't it be easier in 2012?
Implementing SQL Server's Change Data Capture
When SQL Server 2008 was released the Microsoft product group came out with a new feature called "Change Data Capture" that allows you to track the changes that occur to a table. Greg Larsen gives you a primer of how to implement change data capture and how to review the captured information to produce an audit trail of the changes to a database table.
A Cool Job
Today's editorial was originally published on August 21, 2007. It is being re-run as Steve is traveling. What a cool job it must be to try and tune and get the most performance out of a system.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
See possible answers