External Article

SQL Server 2005 System Tables and Views

When a SQL Server object is created, its properties are called metadata. The metadata is stored in special System Tables. For example, in SQL 2000, when a new column was created, the column name and data type could be found in an internal System Table called syscolumns. All SQL objects produce metadata. Every time SQL 2000 Enterprise Manager or SQL 2005 SQL Server Management Studio is browsed, the information displayed about database, tables, and all objects, comes from this metadata.

SQLServerCentral Article

Suggestions for Datatypes

SQL Server 2000 does a lot of things for the DBA, tuning, updating statistics, scheduling tasks, wizards and more. But one thing that it does not help with is choosing the correct data type for your data. New author Amit Lohia brings us a technique and some code that will examine your existing data and suggest places where another data type might be a better choice.

Technical Article

Using ANSI SQL as a Conceptual Hierarchical Data Modeling

This paper will explain and show how standard ANSI SQL processors can naturally model and automatically process complex multi-leg hierarchical data structures at a full conceptual hierarchical level. This also means the query user does not need to have structure knowledge of the hierarchical structures involved. The data modeling capability includes dynamically combining logical hierarchical relational and physical XML data structures at a full hierarchical level. This also includes the ability to link below the root of the lower level structure intuitively forming a valid unified hierarchical structure. As will be shown, ANSI SQL’s high level hierarchical data processing allows the flexible conceptual control of hierarchical node promotion, fragment processing, structure transformation, and variable structure creation.

External Article

Using CROSS APPLY in SQL Server 2005

My interest in writing this article was started by an MSDN article titled SQL Server 2005: The CLR Enters the Relational Stage. The article shows how to write a function that returns the top three countries per category. That's always been something that was difficult to do in SQL so I was curious about the approach. The article started out well but I was very unhappy by the end. It's just soooo much easier to do this in SQL Server 2005 using the new CROSS APPLY clause in Transact-SQL. So I'm going to write a query to return the top 3 orders for each customer and I'm going to do it in about 10 lines of SQL. (UPDATE: An alert reader found an even better approach!)

SQLServerCentral Article

Turbo for SQL Server

Searching data is an essential part of SQL Server applications, especially text searching. While Full Text Search in SQL Server 2000 works, it lacks some important features that Turbo for SQL Server can handle. Read this review of the product and see if this is a way you can enhance the search functions in your application.

External Article

SQL Server Performance Monitor

You can monitor the system performance by using the Performance monitor console and its related counters in Windows 2000. These counters allow you to view or save information about the overall performance of your server. When you install Microsoft SQL Server, additional Performance monitor objects and counters are automatically installed. While you must have administrative access to your SQL Server to use these objects, SQL Server admins should find them invaluable in monitoring and tuning the database server. Furthermore, the Performance monitor can be used either locally or remotely, which allows admins greater control in monitoring SQL Server. I am going to show you how to use the Performance monitor to keep a close watch over your SQL Server systems.

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Question of the Day

Restoring On Top I

I am doing development work on a database and want to keep a backup so I can reset my database. I make some changes and want to restore over top of my changes. When I run this code, what happens? 

USE Master
BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak'
GO

USE DNRTest
GO
CREATE TABLE MyTest(myid INT)
GO
USE master
RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACE

See possible answers