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
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Forums
Lots of FKs
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Lots of FKs
Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data in Excel – Over the Internet
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data...
Can You Let Go of Determinism
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Can You Let Go of...
Question of the Day
Lots of FKs
In SQL Server 2025, what are the most outgoing and incoming FK references a table can have?
See possible answers