Excel in the Clouds
Today Steve Jones talks about a new use for cloud computing with Excel to analyze large sets of data.
SQL Peer-to-Peer Dynamic Structured Data Processing Collaboration
Unstructured and XML semi-structured data is now used more than structured data. But fixed structured data still keeps businesses running day in and day out, which requires consistent predictable highly principled processing for correct results. For this reason, it would be very useful to have a general purpose SQL peer-to-peer collaboration capability that can utilize highly principled hierarchical data processing and its flexible and advanced structured processing to support dynamically structured data and its dynamic structured processing. This flexible dynamic structured processing can change the structure of the data as necessary for the required processing while preserving the relational and hierarchical data principles. This processing will perform freely across remote unrelated peer locations anytime and transparently process unpredictable and unknown structured data and data type changes automatically for immediate processing using automatic metadata maintenance.
Archiving
It seems that archival isn't on the mind of most designers when they first build a database, which is OK, but DBAs ought to be building skills to implement this if the data size grows large.
Patch Week
This week Steve Jones notes there were quite a few patches from Microsoft for a variety of products. No SQL Server specific security patches, but that doesn't mean that DBAs shouldn't be patching systems.
Slowly changing dimensions using T-SQL MERGE
Of all the technical solutions to the problem of slowly changing dimensions, the T-SQL MERGE statement is one of the most elegant.
A Tale of Identifiers
Identifiers aren't locators, and they aren't pointers or links either. They are a logical concept in a relational database, and, unlike the more traditional methods of accessing data, don't derive from the way that data gets stored. Identifiers uniquely identify members of the set, and it should be possible to validate and verify them. Celko somehow involves watches and taxi cabs to illustrate the point.
SQL Saturday #82 - Indianapolis
Come to Indianapolis on June 25, 2011 for a free one day training event on SQL Server.
Multiple Failures
This Friday Steve Jones has a disaster recovery poll. When you have a true disaster, often there are multiple things that go wrong and cause a cascading failure. Is this common, let us know what your experience is this Friday.
SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Integration Services - Consuming Web Services Using Script Task
Web services can be easily leveraged in SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services by employing Web Services Task.
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #198 Roundup: How Do You Detect Data Changes?
Thank you to everyone who participated in T-SQL Tuesday #198! When I wrote the...
Optimizing Redshift Performance by Configuring WLM Queues
Efficient query performance in Amazon Redshift often comes down to how well you manage...
PowerShell Strikes Back: Return of the Loop
By gbargsley
Welcome back to PowerShell Strikes Back. We’re three weeks in, and the training is...
Forums
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployment Level 3 – Rehearsing Changesets Across Environments
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployment...
QUOTENAME Quote Parameters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item QUOTENAME Quote Parameters
Limit the Blast Radius
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Limit the Blast Radius
Question of the Day
QUOTENAME Quote Parameters
When I use QUOTENAME(), I can optionally provide the character used to surround the string in the result. Can I use any character?
See possible answers