Congratulations Frank
A Longtime SQLServerCentral.com member and a very valued member of the community has just received a great honor in our field. Take a moment to read and add your congratulations.
2005-04-08
4,396 reads
Articles
Anatomy of an IT disaster: How the FBI blew it
Some FBI agents ruefully refer to the trilogy project, a massive initiative to modernize the FBI's aging technology infrastructure, as the "Tragedy" project. It certainly has all the earmarks of tragedy: the best intentions, catastrophic miscommunication, staggering waste.
2005-04-08
5,054 reads
More Portable DTS Packages
There have been a few articles over time on how you can build DTS packages in SQL Server 2000 that are easily moved from one server to another. New author Tito David brings us another technique that not only migrates packages easily between servers, but between your development and production environments.
2005-04-07
9,302 reads
SQL Server 2005 Editions and Integration Services
The SQL Server 2005 product family has now been announced, so with four editions available, what does this mean for SQL Server Integration Services? Starting from the bottom we have the free edition known as Express, and the entry level Workgroup edition, and neither include the full IS product. They have the Import/Export capabilities, but nothing more, so for simple loading and extraction of data this should suffice, but you will not be able to build packages.
2005-04-07
4,009 reads
Part 2: Mapping XML from SQL Server to a Single Cell in Excel 2003
In the second of this three-part series, learn how to map well-formed XML from a standard SQL Server query to a single cell in a worksheet. The resulting output is an XML tree with non-repeating elements.
2005-04-06
1,640 reads
BDS SQL Digger 2.0 Released
Have you ever needed to find something in a stored procedure or function and found yourself trying to wade through syscomments? Ever want to know which views reference a table, but you don't trust sysdepends? BDS has released SQL Digger 2.0, a utility designed to help you search through your schema and code to find what you need.
2005-04-05
3,808 reads
Flexible DTS Packages with Perl
SQL Server 2000 DTS was a revolutionary programming environment, but one that was not without a few quirks. As often found with many Microsoft products, there were sections in your packages where things were hard coded, making them less flexible. New author Jeremy Brown brings us a look at how you can build extremely flexible packages using Perl.
2005-04-05
11,053 reads
Part 1: Automating the XML Data Mapping Process in Excel 2003
In the first of a three-part series, learn how to use XML maps to customize Excel as a data input and display system.
2005-04-05
1,643 reads
Know Your Data
Or at least the types of your data. New author Roy Carlson was working in SQL Server 2000 to calculate some values based on row counts, sales amounts, etc. and discovered some interesting results. Without his sharp eye, a number of individuals would have been upset by the resulting lack of commissions, as may some of your clients. Read about some potential problems in your calculations if you are not careful with your data types.
2005-04-04
6,673 reads
Tableau Software Debuts
With it's VizQL, Tableau Software is revolutionizing the way that you will analyze data. Built to work with multiple data sources, including SQL Server databases and Analysis Services cubes, this software will amaze you.
2005-04-04
3,531 reads
Blogs
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025
When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...
Forums
Multiple Deployment Processes
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How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases
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Upgrading Admin Queries
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Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
See possible answers