Individual Contributions
Each person on a team, or even in a company, can contribute something. Steve Jones reminds us not to assume we are better than others because of our job.
A deadlock was detected while trying to lock variables in SSIS
Error: 0xC001405C at SQL Log Status: A deadlock was detected while trying to lock variables "User::RowCount" for read/write access. A lock cannot be acquired after 16 attempts. The locks timed out. Have you ever considered variable locking when building your SSIS packages? I expect many people haven’t just because most of the time you never see an error like the one above. I’ll try and explain a few key concepts about variable locking and hopefully you never will see that error
SSIS: Conditional File Processing in a ForEach Loop
I’ve fielded a number of requests recently asking how to interrogate a file within SSIS and change the processing rules...
Mutexes in SQL
This article shows you how to manage process control among multiple servers using a lightweight database utility
The DBA Financial Analyst
Will DBAs need to perform more complex financial analysis of the options they consider when building and tuning software systems? Steve Jones thinks it might be a skill needed in cloud computing.
Security Auditing Matching Up Logins And Users
I have been tasked with auditing security on my SQL Server. However, this needs to be a somewhat automated process as I don't want to have to rely on taking screenshots every month to satisfy our auditors. What tables and/or views should I be using and what's the best way to extract the information out of them?
The Semantics of NULL in SQL Server 2008
Learn the basics of NULL, what it is, and how to query for it in your databases from Adolfo Socorro. What NULL means, how to account for it, and how are expressions involving NULL evaluated
Tracy Hamlin, Exceptional DBA of 2010, on what it means to go the extra mile
An interview with the Exceptional DBA of 2010, Tracy Hamlin.
When To Touch
When can you modify a database that supports some third party product? Steve Jones has a few thoughts and warns you to be careful.
Executing SSIS Packages Using DTExec
Learn how the DTExec and DTExecUI utilities give you the ability to assign values to arbitrary properties of components within a SQL Server Integration Services package, when invoking its execution.
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