Over the years, there have been several attempts to turn conventional RDBMSs into object relational databases, by inserting an intermediate layer. The driving force behind this was the generally-held assumption that the relational model could not handle complex data types.
The CLR has not been well-received and most people use it for Regular Expressions and string functions. Here is an example that goes beyond trivial uses.
Parameterization of MDX functions is one of those things that cannot be delivered solely via graphical MDX Editor – but then, you really didn’t think that you could avoid actually touching MDX at all, did you? BI Architect Bill Pearson demonstrates a way to parameterize the highly useful LastPeriods() function.
Have you seen disasters in your environment? I would bet you have at some point. Let's see if our top 13 disasters matches your experiences.
I see, with some relief that the threatened removal of Rules and Defaults in SQL Server 2008 hasn’t happened. There has been a stay of execution. Even though they are documented, they still come with a dire warning that they are deprecated and will be removed in future versions. They have fallen foul of the SQL Standards committee, and we are now supposed to use check constraints instead.
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.
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.
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.
This article describes how the Transparent Data Encryption feature in SQL Server 2008 can be used to secure your databases
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.
By Steve Jones
While wandering around the documentation looking for some Question of the Day topics, I...
By Arun Sirpal
Third part in my Ai series with databases. When building AI solutions within the...
By Steve Jones
This month we have a very interesting invitation from Koen Verbeeck. He has hosted...
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As of June 2026, what is the best version of TLS to use with SQL Server?
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