SQLServerCentral Editorial

Time for Your Career

This week Steve Jones wants to know if you can find time for your professional development. Regularly improving your skills is an important part of your career in technology, and the poll this weeks asks what time you can make for improvement.

External Article

The T-SQL of CSV: Comma-Delimited of Errors

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.

External Article

Export data to an earlier SQL Server version

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.

Blogs

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March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates

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How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025

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Forums

Multiple Deployment Processes

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes

How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases

By Kunal Rathi

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to...

Upgrading Admin Queries

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Upgrading Admin Queries

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Question of the Day

Upgrading Admin Queries

I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?  

See possible answers