Coincidence or Causality
Steve Jones looks at query optimization, and based on some blogging from Microsoft, the level of impact that you can have on a system.
Convert String to a Table using CTE
Explains how to convert a list of Ids passed as string and convert it to a table
PowerPivot
A new direction in BI, with a new flagship interface for Business Intelligence from Microsoft. Steve Jones talks a little about the back story he heard from Microsoft.
PowerPivot
A new direction in BI, with a new flagship interface for Business Intelligence from Microsoft. Steve Jones talks a little about the back story he heard from Microsoft.
PowerPivot
A new direction in BI, with a new flagship interface for Business Intelligence from Microsoft. Steve Jones talks a little about the back story he heard from Microsoft.
PowerPivot
A new direction in BI, with a new flagship interface for Business Intelligence from Microsoft. Steve Jones talks a little about the back story he heard from Microsoft.
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) - Design Best Practices
In the previous tips (SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) - Best Practices - Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) of this series I briefly talked about SSIS and few of the best practices to consider while designing SSIS packages. Continuing on this path I am going to discuss some more best practices of SSIS package design, how you can use lookup transformations and what considerations you need to take, the impact of implicit type cast in SSIS, changes in SSIS 2008 internal system tables and stored procedures and finally some general guidelines.
TSQL Challenge 19 - Working with consolidated calculations on hierarchical structures
This challenge involves generating an organizational hierarchy and calculating the total orders created by each employee and his/her subordinates. It involves a number of challenges such as generating a resultset in the correct hierarchical form, calculating the orders created by each employee and his/her subordinates and finally calculating the total orders created by self and all the subordinates.
What SQL Statements Are Currently Executing?
This article describes a utility that allows you to identify what SQL statements are currently executing.
Comparing cursor vs. WHILE loop performance in SQL Server 2008
There are situations in which you need to individually handle each row in a result set. SQL Server 2008 provides a minimal set of tools — cursors and WHILE loops — to accomplish this task. I'll take a closer look at each option and explain why it's difficult to pinpoint which is better in terms of performance.
Blogs
A Spread of Vacation
By Steve Jones
I’m off on vacation today. Which is a little weird as I just got...
How AgentDBA Identifies Backup Failures
By Arun Sirpal
Every DBA has a box like this. Sitting untouched for months. Nobody’s proud of...
Tip: Expanding a SQL statement
In all recent versions of the database you can call DBMS_UTILITY.EXPAND_SQL_TEXT to get the...
Forums
From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline
Comments posted to this topic are about the item From SQL Server On-Premises to...
Independence Day 2026
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026
Independence Day 2026
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026
Question of the Day
Independence Day 2026
In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.
See possible answers