A Good Word for ODBC
A guest editorial from Phil Factor puts in a good word for ODBC. This is the standard for Windows machines to connect to all kinds of data sources, and is both loved and hated by developers of all kinds.
Less Than a Week - PASS 2009 Summit
A last push for the 2009 PASS Summit before registration goes up.
Managing Free Space
A new article from Paul Els looks at managing free space on your database servers by finding detached databases and old backup files.
Date Expression Compilation in SSIS
There are many different ways to manipulate dates when working with them in SSIS. Many great examples have been posted...
PASS Connector Editorial for Sep 9, 2009
I currently write the editorial for the PASS Connector which is published every two weeks as part of my role...
Understanding Scans And Seeks
Whether a query uses Scan or Seek can have a big impact on the cost of excuting that query. This article examines when each is used and which is optimal.
Using Star Join and Few-Outer-Row Optimizations to Improve Data Warehousing Queries
In this white paper we discuss two of the new features in SQL Server 2008, Star Join and Few-Outer-Row optimizations. We test the performance of SQL Server 2008 on a set of complex data warehouse queries designed to highlight the effect of these two features and observed a significant performance gain over SQL Server 2005 (without these two features).
Finding Passwords
There was a vulnerability announced in the SQL Server password system last week, but Steve Jones doesn't see this as much of an issue. Read his thoughts and see if you agree.
Returning full error details from SQL Server Agent jobs
Tired of the truncated error history that is available for SQL Server Agent jobs in SSMS, here is a way to get deeper information - easily!
EVA Partition Alignment
Partition alignment is a well documented best practice, but does it have any benefit on an HP EVA?
Blogs
The Notification Trap: How Input Fatigue Is Killing Deep Work in Tech
By gbargsley
If you've been here before, you know this blog is usually about SQL Server,...
Designing a Storage Load Test for SQL Server
I’ve been doing storage load tests for SQL Server for a long time, both...
Questions and Answers from Running a Local LLM
By Steve Jones
I had a few random questions from my Running a Local LLM on Your...
Forums
A question about how to store the address in the database
I have an app that has an address field on the customer and the...
SSIS package failing intermittently on last Excel Component
Good Afternoon, I have a Job which "fires" off an SSIS package (that is...
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: JSON_ARRAYAGG
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Question of the Day
Multiple Sequence Values
How do I easily get the next 12 sequence values from a sequence object?
See possible answers