SQL 2005 vs. SQL 2008 Part 1 - (Backup File Sizes and Times)
SQL 2008 has some key improvements over SQL 2005. This article deals with backup compression and faster backups in SQL 2008
TSQL Challenge 57 - Identify rows that match the rollup trade data
Your job is to scan the trades data and identify combination of trades that match a given rollup data.
Cartoonists Wanted
An open call to the amatuers that might want to pen some database related cartoons for Simple Talk Publishing.
Cursors for T-SQL Beginners
Should we really avoid cursors? See how to rewrite code to avoid cursors and also analyze the implications.
The Backup Passwords
Today Steve Jones asks how you handle those passwords across time for backups in this week's Friday poll.
Onboarding SQL Server Private Cloud Environment
This guide outlines the major considerations that must be taken into account when onboarding Microsoft® SQL Server® environments into a private cloud infrastructure.There is a strong trend in IT to virtualize servers whenever possible, driven by:1. Standardization2. Manageability3. IT agility and efficiency4. Consolidating servers reduces hardware, energy, and datacenter space utilization costs5. Virtualized environments allow new Disaster Recovery strategiesThe Hyper-V™ role in Windows Server® 2008 R2 provides a robust and cost-effective virtualization foundation to deliver these scenarios.However, there is significant risk in virtualizing SQL Server environments without giving careful consideration to the workloads being virtualized and the requirements of the server applications running on a Hyper-V environment.
Getting the most out of your SQL Server 2008 Cluster
Gain an insight into how to use your SQL Server cluster for more than just high availibility in this article from Mark Jones.
Greed Is Good (for IT)
Can greedy executives be good for IT? Steve Jones thinks so and gives us a few reasons today.
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
How to Work with On-Premises AI Models to Generate T-SQL Code
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Work with On-Premises...
Escaping Strings
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Escaping Strings
Imagine the Physical World
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Imagine the Physical World
Question of the Day
Escaping Strings
The STRING_ESCAPE() function requires 2 parameters in SQL Server 2025. The first is a string of text and the second is the type of escape rules being used. What are the options for the second parameter?
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