The Community Has Been Heard
Steve Jones talked about the announcements of Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2005 and Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008 in this editorial.
Webinar Series: SQL Server 101
A partnership with Pragmatic Works brings you some basic SQL Server training through a series of webinars.
Use SSIS to import one cell of an Excel file into SQL Server
Recently I needed to find a method to import one cell of an Excel sheet into SQL Server 2005 using a scheduled job on a 64 bit clustered environment. For example, I have a monthly sales report listing sales per product category, such as Books, Magazines, DVDs, etc. I only want to import the Total Sales amount into SQL Server and this number is located in an Excel file "sales.xls.sheet1.cell.B5". I used to use OPENROWSET to solve the problem, however OPENROWSET requires Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider which is not available in 64 bit. In this tip I am going to talk about how to use SSIS to accomplish this task easily.
Safety in Numbers
One of the core things a DBA must do is ensure backup and recovery of data. This Friday Steve Jones asks about your tolerance for safety and backup data in a Friday poll.
Tips for New DBAs
New and old DBAs alike can benefit from going back to the roots of the profession. This series of articles highlight the skills needed to move to the next level of Database Administration.
Azure Tutorial - Building a'Hello Word' app in Visual Studio
This article demonstrates how to build a simple Azure app using Visual Studio
SSIS Alpha Splits using the CODEPOINT() Function
A relatively common requirement in ETL processing is to break records into disparate outputs based on an alphabetical split on...
Covering Index using Included Columns
This article from Josef Richberg details the benefits of included columns for use in creating a covering index to improve performance.
Configure Windows Firewall to Work with SQL Server
Windows Firewall is an OS level software firewall. It can be a crucial part of OS level security if you are not using other firewall hardware or software. Since I do not have another firewall I have a need to enable Windows Firewall for my SQL Server database server. In this article I go through the process of configuring Windows Firewall for different scenarios along with the associated considerations.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Lots of Ideas
By Steve Jones
“A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea” – from Excellent...
Microsoft Fabric Data Agents: Bringing Structured and Unstructured Data Together
By James Serra
Most enterprise questions do not live neatly in one place. The numbers may be...
Keeping Redshift System Table History Past 7 Days with S3 Tables
Redshift keeps its SYS_* monitoring views for seven days in cluster, which is fine...
Forums
Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization vs. Parameter Sniffing: What SQL Server Fixes and What It Doesn't
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization vs....
Hyperscale Replicas I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hyperscale Replicas I
The End of Summer
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The End of Summer
Question of the Day
Hyperscale Replicas I
What types of secondary replicas are available for the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale edition?
See possible answers