SQL or MDX query trace in SSRS - trick of imagination or a real thing?
I sometimes have ghost memories - I remember some things that had never in fact happened. And I was wondering if ...
SQL Saturday #50 - East Iowa
Come to a SQL Saturday in Iowa City on Sept 18, 2010 and get a free day of training from the SQL community.
Check Twice, Update Once
An update to the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer tool intrigues Steve Jones as it seems to have been enhanced to better help DBAs manage SQL Server.
Restricting SecurityAdmin on SQL Server 2005/2008
Members of the securityadmin role can escalate to sysadmin rights. Here's how to restrict them back to 2000 levels.
DMVs for Query Plan Metadata
Before you can tackle any performance issues with a working database, you need to know which queries to work on first: The ones that are taking the most time in total, and which are the most expensive in terms of cache, CPU and disk. Although SQL Server Management Studio can help, it isn't long before you need an armoury of DMVs to provide you the statistics to find the culprits.
How Old Are Your Database Statistics?
Unlike fine wine, database statistics do not improve with age. I recently helped out with a client who was having...
Parsing an ADO result set into a comma separated string in SSIS
This article describes a way to parse a result set in SSIS using For each loop container, variables and SQL task.
Where Are the Programmers?
Today Steve Jones has a little fun with titles in technology, and what we might start to call ourselves instead of DBAs.
What Every DBA Ought to Know About SQL Server Cursors (and Their Alternatives)
Cursors provide a means of processing through a set of records row-by-row. However, many companies have a policy against using cursors in their SQL Server standards. This article examines the problem with cursors and alternatives to using them.
Conditional WHERE Clauses and Boolean Algebra
Utilize simple boolean algebra and nullable parameters to implement conditional WHERE clauses without dynamic SQL.
Blogs
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
2025 Wrapped for Steve
By Steve Jones
I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...
Forums
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
reaching ftp thru winscp but erroring in ssis ftp task connection
Hi, below i show various results trying to reach our ftp site (a globalscape...
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers