Sins of SQL: The Time Table
Steve Gray discusses one of the oldest OLAP techiques for representing the time dimension - and shows why it's a lot easier to stick to DATETIME values.
TCA
SQL Server has a lower TCA, total cost of administration, than Oracle. Steve Jones comments today on a few of the reasons.
Statistical Sampling for Verifying Database Backups
A DBA's huge workload can start to threaten best practices for data backup and recovery, but ingenuity, and an eye for a good tactic, can usually find a way. For Tom, the revelation about a solution came from eating crabs. Statistical sampling can be brought to bear to minimize the risk of failure of an emergency database restore.
A Google-like Full Text Search
Implementing searching in your database is always a challenge and MVP Michael Coles brings us a method of building a Google-like search for SQL Server.
Getting the Message
Regardless of the speed of your SQL routines there comes a time, for any server-based system, when you need to think "parallel" and "asynchronous". So why, Phil Factor wonders, does there seem to be so little interest in Service Broker?
Free e-book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
For a limited time, you can download this 10-chapter e-book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner.
Running SQL Server Jobs using a Proxy Account
Proxy accounts are a useful tool to enable teams to work independently allow users who do not have administrative access to SQL Server to run jobs.
TSQL Challenge 31 - Managing multiple overlapping date intervals.
This challenge is adapted from a budgeting system used in a large company to perform quarterly analysis of what kind of work will be done and where it will be done. Project Managers make plans and the estimated hours of work required from each employee each month end up in a central database. Top managers want to see a synthesis of this by department and profession
Transaction Log Growth, do you need it?
One of the most common questions asked about SQL Server has to do with the transaction log and why does it grow. James Rea brings us a good explanation here of what happens and what you should do about it.
Blogs
Prime Day Recommendations
By Steve Jones
It’s Prime Day. A few of my recommendations, since I want to do some...
Fabric for Operational Reporting & SQL Endpoint Trap
With Fabric Mirroring, Microsoft is promoting a nice and appealing story for operational reporting...
Crawl, Walk, Run with Agentic Development of Power BI Assets
If you’ve been watching AI roll through the data community and thinking, “this seems...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level 5 of the Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level...
Spending Time in the Office
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Spending Time in the Office
Question of the Day
Multiple Values Inserted
I have this code on SQL Server 2022. What happens when it runs all at once?
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS dbo.Commission GO CREATE TABLE dbo.Commission (id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) CONSTRAINT CommissionPK PRIMARY KEY , salesperson VARCHAR(20) , commission VARCHAR(20) ) GO INSERT dbo.Commission ( salesperson, commission) VALUES ( 'Brian', 12 ), ( 'Brian', 'None' ) GOSee possible answers