The Missing Certification
You can earn an MCITPro or an MCM in your DBA career, but there's a world of difference between those two. Steve Jones agrees with Simon Sabin that we need something in between.
Minimizing Fragmentation when Moving data using a Switch
Yesterday was the first day of the SQL Server 2008 R2 airlift.I attended a great session on Implementing a Fast...
SQL Server 2008 R2 Multi-server Administration - A First Look
One of the most useful new features of SQL 2008 R2 for DBA’s is the ability to manage and administer multiple instances of SQL Server from a central location using the new SQL Server Utility tool.
Double-Entry Bookkeeping for SQL Programmers
All defensive programmers should, in general, avoid unsupported techniques. However, there is a balance to be struck between adherence to 'best practice' approaches to SQL programming, and the need to get the job done. Perhaps certain critical code would benefit from use of the age-old practice of double entry bookkeeping?
Dynamically name report/file export in SSRS
Wouldn't it be nice if you could have the report's name and filename be changed to something more specifically related to the particular run of that report.
Rolling Back a Restore
Should rolling back a restore be an option for SQL Server? Steve Jones talks about the possibilities in today's editorial and where it might come in handy.
Configure Windows Firewall for SQL Server 2008 Database Engine in Windows Server 2008 R2
I have installed SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition on Windows Server 2008 R2 and I am unable to get connect to SQL Server 2008 Instance from SQL Server 2008 Management Studio which is installed on another remote server. As I am new to Windows Server 2008 R2 it would be great if you can let me know the step by step approach to enable the default port of SQL Server 2008 in Windows Firewall for user connectivity.
TSQL Challenge 26 - Identify weekly schedule of training programs by course, classroom and timing
Here is another scheduling problem that deals with the allotment of classrooms for various training programs. Your chalenge is to read the source data and build an output result set that shows the weekly schedule of each training topic and the class room in which training is scheduled.
Finding Training
This Friday's poll looks at training where Steve Jones asks how you might convince your boss to pay for training, or what advice you'd give to others.
SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Enhancements Part - III
Continuing with his series on T-SQL enhancements in SQL Server 2008, Arshad Ali brings us a look at the HierarchyID and Large UDTs.
Blogs
AI Helps Me with My Sloppiness
By Steve Jones
I type fairly well. Well, I type fast, but I do wear out a...
Automatic Index Compaction
By ReviewMyDB
Index maintenance has always meant nightly jobs and a window you have to defend....
The Goldilocks problem – Materialized Views
I’m sure you’ve all heard the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but...
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...
How We Handled a Vendor Retry That Loaded Twice in Snowflake
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How We Handled a Vendor...
Cognitive Coverage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Cognitive Coverage
Question of the Day
Getting the Average
I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.
salesperson commission Brian 12 Brian 16 Andy 7 Andy 14 Andy 21 Steve 20 Steve NULLAll the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
, AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
FROM commission
GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve? See possible answers