SQL Server Indexing Best Practices: Stairway to SQL Server Indexes Level 15
Dos and don’ts that lead to a healthy, well-performing database.
Vendor Selection
Today's editorial was originally published on Apr 29, 2007. It is being re-run as Steve is at SQL Server Connections. Today Steve Jones talks about purchasing software.
Storing E-mail addresses more efficiently in SQL Server
A lot of people are storing large quantities of e-mail addresses in their systems. Since a large percentage of any system's user base is going to be supplying e-mail addresses from a few of the vastly popular providers (such as GMail and Hotmail), we are storing the "@gmail.com" and "@hotmail.com" parts of those addresses on disk over and over and over again.
Generating Test Data: Part 1 - Generating Random Integers and Floats
Learn how you can easily generate large amounts of test data efficiently in this new series from Jeff Moden. Part 1 covers integers and floating point values.
Make Meetings Fun
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren as Steve Jones is at SQL Server Connections. Today Andy talks about how we can make those dreaded daily events, meetings, better.
The Clonesome Database
You need a quiet couple of hours poking about with DMVs, and checking execution plans to get to the bottom of the a query issue, but you can't make a copy the production database either. It's too big, and the data is private....
Using SQL Server's Output Clause
When you are inserting, updating, or deleting records from a table, SQL Server keeps track of the records that are changed in two different pseudo tables: INSERTED, and DELETED. These tables are normally used in DML triggers. If you use the OUTPUT clause on an INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE or MERGE statement you can expose the records that go to these pseudo tables to your application and/or T-SQL code.
Dealing with custom date formats in T-SQL
Should I be formatting dates on the database side? What tools can I use in SQL Server to format and parse dates? This article helps you decide which one best suits your needs.
The Maintenance Poll
This Friday Steve Jones asks about maintenance. Do you have regular windows? Flex time? Or is maintenance just added on whenever it is needed and added onto your work week.
Creating a Map Report in SSRS - SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 R2 brought several new features into the SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) arena. In the data visualization category, we now have three additional ways to display and visualize/analyze data in the reports.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers