As multi-tier architectures grow over time, it is often challenging to coordinate those changes across the data, logic and presentation tiers. Unless planned and implemented carefully, an act as simple as adding a column to a table can grind all of the components of your application to a halt. While some of us have comfortable 12-hour maintenance windows every weekend, many of us are bound by service level agreements that are much more strict. So we must find ways to introduce fixes and new features with zero downtime, and without requiring every single component to be refactored at the same time.

Expert Systems – an SSRS Approach

by Jonathan Spink

SQLServerCentral.com

Reporting Services (SSRS)

An interesting approach to solving a complicated problem using SSRS. Users have too much documentation to read about a process, so Jonathan Spink introduces a better way to do things.

The Schema Debate

by Steve Jones

SQLServerCentral.com

Editorial

There was quite a bit of debate over the use of schemas recently on the Internet. Steve Jones talks about some of the reasons why you might want a schema, and a few reasons why you might not.

Creating XML in SQL Server

by Additional Articles

Database Journal

XML has become a common form of representing and exchanging data in today's information age. SQL Server introduced XML-centric capabilities in SQL Server 2000. That functionality has been expanded in later releases. One aspect of working with XML is creating XML from relational data, which is accomplished utilizing the FOR XML clause in SQL Server.