Too Good to be True? The Story Behind SQL Search
A guest editorial today from Simon Galbraith, founder of Red Gate Software talking about SQL Search, a new product that was developed in an interesting way.
Are You Running the x86 Version of SQL Server 2005/2008?
If so why? Honestly, I am curious why people may still be running 32-bit versions of SQL Server 2005, 2008,...
Introduction to Security in Analysis Services
Join BI Architect Bill Pearson in this introduction to Security in Analysis Services 2008. Here we explore security concepts and implementation, and look forward to hands-on practice with security in other articles of this subseries.
Coding By The Sea
An interesting experiment at Red Gate, Coding By the Sea, produced results, and Steve Jones thinks this could be a great idea for other companies.
Easy Error Trapping When Using xp_cmdshell
Getting errors and output messages when using xp_cmdshell can be tricky. This method can solve your problems.
13 Things You Should Know About Statistics and the Query Optimizer
Fabiano launches into a sound technical explanation of the way that the query optimiser works in SQL Server with a mention of Brazilian Soccer stars and young ladies on Copacabana beach. You'll never quite think of statistics, execution plans, and the query optimiser the same way again after reading this, but we think you'll understand them better.
But We Have Always Done It That Way
I recently ran across the following scenario. A SQL Server instance had been upgraded from SQL Server 2005 to SQL...
How to use sys.fn_PhysLocFormatter undocumented function
It would be nice if we could use the DBCC PAGE command to see exactly what it is stored at the page level, however, in order to do this we need to find a way to correlate the results returned from a SELECT statement with the physical data location. Is that possible? The answer is: YES. All we need to do is use the sys.fn_physLocFormatter function. In this tip, I will cover how to use this undocumented function.
PASS AppDev Presents: SQL Server Indexing
While indexing traditionally has been the concern of the DBA, it's important for developers to understand both the usefulness and the impact of indexes in your relational database. With the right indexes your application will perform like a Formula One racer, without them performance will better resemble a Model T. This presentation will explain how indexes work, what options are available to you in SQL Server 2008, and how to tune your application and your database for the best performance.By Allen White, 2/9/2010, 1:00EST
SQL Server DMV Green Paper
Get a free green paper, an early access look at a new DMV book from longtime author Ian Stirk.
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers