Despite the neglect of the basic ODBC drivers over the years, they still afford a neat way of reading from, and writing to, CSV files; and to be able to do so in SQL as if they were tables is somewhat magical. Just to prove it is possible, Phil Factor creates a CSV version of AdventureWorks as a linked server.
Performance test of new SQL 2012 functions DateTimeFromParts and Format
Steve Jones attended a day out from the Red Gate offices recently and he talks about the value of those experiences.
I have data in a SQL Server database that I need to get to an older version of SQL Server. I tried the backup and restore method, but received an error indicating that this wasn't allowed. I also tried to detach and attach the database, but that operation failed too. I understand that typical methods I use to move the database around don't work when I have to work with an earlier SQL Server version. What can I do to get the data out? This is a simple database and I want to spend a minimal amount of effort.
Learn how you can set up a new SQL Server instance painlessly on Amazon's Relational Database Service (RDS)
Amazon now offers SQL Server 2008 R2 in their RDS service. It's an easy way to get working with SQL Server with a minimal investment.
Identify resource bottlenecks in a stressed transaction replication topology using PERFMON/PAL and system wait stats
SQL Server Reporting Services provides several ways to analyze the data; a few of them are creating reports with indicators and Gauges. Indicators are minimal gauges that convey the state of a single data value at a glance and are mostly used to represent the state value of Key Performance Indicator (KPI, a measurable value which has business significance with a specific target or goal that indicates whether things are going good or bad).
An outage at SQLServerCentral reminded Steve Jones that it's not "if" a disaster will occur, but "when" it will occur that should have you preparing for a disaster at some point in the future.
When writing T-SQL, a lot of developers use either COALESCE or ISNULL in order to provide a default value in cases where the input is NULL. The two functions do have quite different behavior and it is important to understand the qualitative differences between them when using them in your code.
By Steve Jones
One of the things I’ve tried hard to do in database development situations if...
By DataOnWheels
The T-SQL Tuesday topic this month comes James Serra. What career risks have you...
This T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by the one and only James Serra – literally...
We have two "identical" instances of an ASP.NET web service (or so I have...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OPENQUERY Flexibility
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Full Shutdown
Which of these are valid OPENQUERY() uses?
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