Hierarchies in SQL
One very common structure that needs to be handled in T-SQL is the hierarchy. One of our prominent members of the community discusses how you can handle hierarchies in SQL Server.
Put Your Thinking Caps On
Three contests from Red Gate Software are coming next week. Get a hint about what might be coming and set a reminder on your calendar.
Shrinking Databases
One piece of advice that is often given to new SQL Server administrators is not to shrink their databases. But they seem to do it often enough anyway. For this Friday's poll, Steve Jones asks if we should do away with shrink.
Facebook and E-Mail Security for a New Teenager
Cross-posted from a Goal Keeping DBA blog:
Just recently, my oldest son entered the ranks of the teenagers. I shouldn’t actually...
Giving Back, SQLMeetings.com Is Going Live Soon
I’ve been pretty quite since the PASS Summit and with good reason. Every year we have a chapter leader meeting....
Understanding and Controlling Parallel Query Processing in SQL Server
Data warehousing and general reporting applications tend to be CPU intensive because they need to read and process a large number of rows. To facilitate quick data processing for queries that touch a large amount of data, Microsoft SQL Server exploits the power of multiple logical processors to provide parallel query processing operations such as parallel scans. Through extensive testing, we have learned that, for most large queries that are executed in a parallel fashion, SQL Server can deliver linear or nearly linear response time speedup as the number of logical processors increases. However, some queries in high parallelism scenarios perform suboptimally. There are also some parallelism issues that can occur in a multi-user parallel query workload. This white paper describes parallel performance problems you might encounter when you run such queries and workloads, and it explains why these issues occur. In addition, it presents how data warehouse developers can detect these issues, and how they can work around them or mitigate them.
Certified Private Clouds
Microsoft is working to certify vendors to build private clouds, which Steve Jones thinks is a great idea.
What's Happening Here?
A look at what's happening with the SQLServerCentral servers based on the public information exposed by SQL Monitor.
Denormalization in SQL Server for Fun and Profit
Normalization is standard practice in database design, however, an over-normalized database can have issues. This article examines the case for denormalization.
SQLRally Call for Speakers Closes December 15, 2010
The call for speakers is open through December 15, 2010, and I hope many of you will take the chance...
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
We Are Eating Our Own Seed Corn
Comments posted to this topic are about the item We Are Eating Our Own...
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...
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