SQLServerCentral Article

Sic Semper NULL

The great debate over NULLs will probably never end. Should we use them in our databases? What meaning do they have? These are all
valid questions. In this article SQL Server expert Michael Coles takes a look at the problems that are inherent in eliminating NULLs completely from
a database.

Technical Article

The NEWSEQUENTIALID Function

The NEWSEQUENTIALID system function is an addition to SQL Server 2005. It seeks to bring together, what used to be, conflicting requirements in SQL Server 2000; namely identity-level insert performance and globally unique values.

External Article

Using Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS)

SQL Server 2005 has so many new features that in my opinion if you read only BOL for a year you'd find something new every day. One of those is Multiple Active Result Sets or MARS. Multiple Active Result Sets is a new SQL Server 2005 feature that, putting it simply, allows the user to run more than one SQL batch on an open connection at the same time.

Technical Article

Delivering on SQL Server

Having been at the sharp end of many successful SQL Server solutions, I believe there are some fundamental principles that all successful SQL Server installations have in common. Whilst the challenges in delivering an enterprise-scale database-intensive application can be wide and varied, there are a few basic practises that will give you the best possible chance of success.

Blogs

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Forums

Having Issue deploying a report to an on prem server from PowerBI desktop

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Using PowerBI Version1.25.9508.3237(January 2026). Installed Microsoft Power BI Desktop (Optimized for Power BI Report...

SQL 2019 instance with AG, across 2 Windows 2016 OS servers - OSin-place upgrade

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Hi all Can I get some perspective from the community please on performing in-place...

How Long is a Long I/O?

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Long is a Long...

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Question of the Day

How Long is a Long I/O?

In SQL Server 2025, a long I/O is recorded in the error log with message 833. How long much an I/O request be outstanding before this message is written to the log?

See possible answers