The Back Door DBA
Steve Jones is taking well-earned break. In his guest editorial slot, Brad McGehee discusses three simple techniques to help DBAs manage their time more effectively.
T-SQL Data Processing
This article from new author Peter Kierstead shows us how to implement your own "fuzzy" dedup/merge logic without resorting to RBAR in T-SQL.
Execute SQL statements in Integration Services
This tutorial walks you through the process of adding SQL statements to your SSIS packages and bundling them into logical units of work if necessary.
Transparent Data Encryption in SQL Server 2008
This article describes how the Transparent Data Encryption feature in SQL Server 2008 can be used to secure your databases
Best Practices for Database Design
One of the few things that SQL Server does not automatically help you with is the design of your tales, views, and other database objects. Having standards and design techniques can greatly ease the maintenance of your schema as well as ease the transition to having others work with the database. New author J.D. Gonzalez brings us some of his naming techniques to keep things organized.
Startup Weekend in Ann Arbor, MI, June 20-22
Calling all developers! Does the idea of going from a concept to a prototype in a 54 hour marathon weekend of design and coding sound fun to you? If so, join us!
Defining cascading referential integrity constraints in SQL Server
By using cascading referential integrity constraints, you can define the actions that SQL Server 2005 takes when a user tries to delete or update a key to which existing foreign keys point.
Introduction to XQuery in SQL Server 2005
This white paper provides an introduction to various features of XQuery implemented in SQL Server 2005 such as the FLWOR statement, operators in XQuery, if-then-else construct, XML constructors, built-in XQuery functions, type casting operators, and examples of how to use each of these features.
In The Zone
Are you in the Zone at work? Can you find those times when you are amazingly productive? Tim Mitchell asks a question in this guest editorial.
Blogs
SQL Saturday Boston Slides and Code
By Steve Jones
Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions today at SQL Saturday Boston 2025. I’ve...
Scaling SQL Server 2025 Vector Search with Load-Balanced Ollama Embeddings
SQL Server 2025 introduces native support for vector data types and external AI models....
Advice I Like: Fear and Imagination
By Steve Jones
Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not...
Forums
How to use data pre-computed in previous ETL SSIS Nodes?
I'm building ETL packages in SSIS. My data comes from an OLE DB Source...
Building AI Governance and Policies- First Steps
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building AI Governance and Policies-...
Simple delete causes table scan on other tables with foreign key
Why is sql doing a full scan VS seeking on the index? I've included...
Question of the Day
Checking Identities
The DBCC CHECKIDENT command is used when working with identity values. I have a table with 10 rows in it that looks like this:
TravelLogID CityID StartDate EndDate 1 1 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 2 2 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 3 3 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 4 4 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 5 5 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 6 6 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 7 7 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 8 8 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 9 9 2025-01-11 2025-01-16 10 10 2025-01-11 2025-01-16The docs for DBCC CHECKIDENT say this if I run with only the table parameter: "If the current identity value for a table is less than the maximum identity value stored in the identity column, it is reset using the maximum value in the identity column. " I run this code:
DELETE dbo.TravelLog WHERE TravelLogID >= 9
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog, RESEED)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
CityID,
StartDate,
EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-09-14', '2025-09-17')
GO
What is the identity value for the new row inserted by the insert statement above? See possible answers