Partial Backup and Restore
Shawn McGehee discusses partial backups, how they're used, and how to avoid potential problems when restoring from a partial backup.
PASS Data Architecture VC presents Mike Fal on Eating the Elephant: SQL Server Table Partitioning
On Thursday May 17th 12PM noon Central, Mike Fal will discuss "SQL Server's table partitioning gives the DBA tools to manage this beast and support very large tables in a way where index management and data retrieval..."
A Stock Price Correlation Matrix
Building a Stock Price Correlation Matrix Using TVPs, a CROSS JOIN and the PIVOT Function
Amazon RDs and the PaaS formerly known as Azure
Phil Factor welcomes SQL Server support by Amazon RDS, as an alternative to having Microsoft as service provider as well as software provider, via the PaaS formerly known as Azure.
Is Software Engineering Dead?
Software engineering is seen as a dead end career choice, at least by some people. Steve Jones disagrees.
Snapshot Isolation Level in SQL Server - What, Why and How - Part 1
Snapshot isolation levels improve performance but there are some things to take into consideration when using this feature. Arshad Ali discusses what snapshot isolation levels are, their variants, and why and when we should use them.
Guide to MCITP: SQL Server 2008 BI Developer
A guide to the SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence exams.
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.
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.
Performance Test of New Date Manipulation Functions (SQL Spackle)
Performance test of new SQL 2012 functions DateTimeFromParts and Format
Blogs
ISACA AI Material/Exam Prep Discount (May 18 – June 30, 2026)
By Brian Kelley
If you are considering any of the ISACA AI certs like the Advanced Artificial...
A Fabric solution can be very cost effective
By ChrisJenkins
Are you currently using Microsoft Fabric or considering migrating to it? If so, there...
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log
By SQLPals
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log If you...
Forums
Before Using AI with Business Data, Read This
Artificial intelligence tools are quickly becoming part of daily business operations, from document analysis...
Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines That Don't Break at Scale
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines...
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
Question of the Day
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
In the Database Engine, when a deadlock is detected, what does the detection interval shrink to (in time)?
See possible answers