November SQL Server Standard - Business Intelligence
The November issue of the SQL Server Standard is out and being mailed to everyone. Read the editorial and get the table of contents.
SQL Server 2005 Adoption Rates
How many people are getting ready to upgrade to SQL Server 2005? Why are they upgrading? Why not? Edgewood Solutions conducted a survey and the results are in. Read on for the executive overview and learn how to get a complete copy of the results.
SSIS - Reusable Benchmark Harness
We all know testing is important, but face it, testing is not the highlight of anyone's daily work. And more important than testing your code the first time is regression testing after you have fixed a few bugs. Kristian Wedberg brings us a new article that uses SSIS to build a harness that allows repeatable testing of code and applying benchmarks to be sure that things are working as expected.
SQL Server 2000 SP3 and xp_cmdshell Woes
The problems caused by the SQL Sapphire Worm, also know as the SQL Slammer, have caused many sites to do a quick upgrade to SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3). It includes the fix that prevents infection by the worm. While moving to the latest service pack is usually a good thing, to do so without thorough testing risks breaking a working application. That is exactly what happened to one of my clients over the weekend.
New Survey: Why Upgrade MS SQL Server?
Take this survey for a chance at a $20 gift certificate from Amazon. Give your reasons to upgrade and your insight on performance issues.
SQL Rescue Review
Having a good tool to read your SQL Server transaction log can be a lifesaver, or a job saver. RegGate Software, maker of a number of useful SQL Server utilities has a log reader and Grany Fritchey takes a look at this product and how it might work in your environment.
Visual Defrag for SQL Server Discount
How often do you check your SQL Server tables for fragmentation? How often do you defragment them? This is one of those technologies that has been available for disks for a long time, but now is here for SQL Server. Norb Technologies is offering a discount to the SQLServerCentral.com community on this product.
Calling COM From T-SQL
One of the lesser used features of SQL Server is the ability to access the functionality in various DLLs using a COM interface. Dinesh Asanka brings us a basic article with a few examples in how you can work with COM components from inside SQL Server 2000.
Loving to Hate the Data Administrator
You can just hear it now: At the table down the hall, there’s a group of people having, (as it seems to you) yet another academic discussion on the merits of third-normal form and the structure of primary keys. You’ve heard many discussions like this before — it all seems so pointless. After all, doesn’t it just boil down to “create table” commands and a bunch of DDL? You mastered all that in your first DBA class. What could be so hard?
Blogs
A New Word: on tenderhooks
By Steve Jones
on tenderhooks – adj. feeling the primal satisfaction of being needed by someone, which...
Ramblings about data communities and your contributions, no excuses
By DataOnWheels
I have been active in the data community throughout my career. I have met...
SQL Server Journey till 2025 (brief)
By Vinay Thakur
Quick Summary for Microsoft SQL Server till 2025, I am fortunate to be part...
Forums
how do i map the "current" object entry in for each to one variable
hi, in an ssis for each loop over an object variable called MyListVariable, i...
Simulating Mercury’s Orbital Motion Using Pure T-SQL (NASA 2025 Dataset)
SQL Server is typically viewed as a transactional or analytical database engine. However, it...
Azure SQL Database | CREATE EVENT SESSION [Blocking_Capture] ON DATABASE
Hello, Is there a way in Azure SQL Database to change the 'Blocking Process...
Question of the Day
String Similarity I
On SQL Server 2025, when I run this, what is returned?
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY('SQL Server', 'MySQL') See possible answers