Pros and cons of six SQL table tools
This article shows how to use 6 SQL table-based tools to solve the same problem, and gives the pros and cons of each.
TSQL Challenge 72 - Calculate the Payroll Hours of Employees
This challenge invites you to solve a payroll challenge which requires to calculate the number of hours employee worked in a week.
Administrating SQL Server Integration Services - Planning, Documenting and Troubleshooting
SQL Server Integration Services is an essential component of SQL Server, and designed to perform a variety of routine and occasional tasks. It majors on ETL tasks and for administrative jobs across servers. The DBA needs also to be aware of their role in optimising SSIS by planning, trouble-shooting, optimising performance, and in documenting installations.
All I want for Christmas
This Friday before Christmas, Steve Jones has a fun poll. What would you like for Christmas? Any fun, interesting, fascinating tech toys?
Intersect, Except, Union, All and Any
Longtime author and expert DBA David Poole examines a few T-SQL commands that he has never used. Learn how some of these little used T-SQL items function and see if they work for you.
Window Functions in SQL Server: Part 2 - The Frame
Fabiano Amorim continues his introduction to SQL Server's implementation of the window functions by giving a history of what got implemented and when, and explaining the concept of the 'Frame' in a window function, with plenty of examples.
Display Complex Hierarchical Data with Server-Side Pagination
This article presents an approach to perform server-side pagination and display complex hierarchical data in Reporting Services.
GOTO and T-SQL
Today we have a guest editorial from Phil Factor as Steve is on vacation. This piece looks at the complaints against GOTO and whether they are valid.
Backing Up a SQL Server Database Directly Onto a Remote Server
Recently I encountered a situation where the backup drive was short of space on the production server. The policy on the production server was that as soon as soon as the Full Backup is complete, a copy of the production backup is transferred to the staging server using RoboCopy
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
See possible answers