They are a basic type of query that every DBA and developer should be able to write, but aggregates are sometimes misunderstood and result in strange behaviors and results. Kathi Kellenberger brings us a tutorial on what aggregate queries are and a few hints on how to become more proficient at writing them.
Linked Servers are an interesting technology in SQL Server to allow remote access from within the database to external data sources. They can be a boon in a heterogenous environment with other Oracle, DB2, etc. data sources. But they can also help in a smaller scale against those "hidden" datasources like Excel or Access. New Author Krishna.
SQL Server includes a great auditing tool: Profiler. It's not the easiest tool to use, however, and it's one that takes some getting used to. Our resident security export, Brian Kelley looks at a simple example of using this tool to audit logins.
This article expands Steve Jones' look at ways to audit changes to your data by building mirror tables.
Part 2 of Steve Jones' series on beginning SQL Server from the perspective of a system administrator or someone not used to working with SQL Server. If you've been designated the new administrator, take a look at this series for some help in coming up to speed on this product.
Part 3 of Steve Jones' series on beginning SQL Server from the perspective of a system administrator or someone not used to working with SQL Server. If you've been designated the new administrator, take a look at this series for some help in coming up to speed on this product. This article looks at logins and basic security.
How many times have you wished that there was a parameter for DATEPART to allow you to check for workdays? While many of us may get stuck working 6 or 7 days a week, most of the world revolves on a 5 day work week. Monday through Friday. New author Jeff Moden brings us a method of easily calculating the number of workdays between any two dates.
Fragmentation in SQL Server is a huge debate. Does it matter? How much is too much? What should you do? In any case, new author Nicholas Cain has put together a system that allows him to keep track of the levels of fragmentation as well as defragment those tables when he feels they are getting too spread apart.
Clustering a SQL Server machine was one of the most frustrating tasks a DBA and Windows administrator had to accomplish in SQL Server 7.0 and Windows NT 4.0. With the maturity of both the OS and the DBMS in Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000, this operation has been simplified tremendously. This first article in the series of article on clustering SQL Server will explain the general architecture of clustering.
A look at coding standards in SQL Server. The first part of this series deals with object naming standards.
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers