External Article

Performance Tuning Tips for Using Microsoft Access

If you are really interested in the fastest performance, don't use Access as a front-end to a SQL Server database. While Access is relatively easy to learn and fast to develop in, its performance if poor when compared to other front-end options. But if you like to develop in Access, or don't have any choice, then the tips on this page will help a little to boost your application's performance.

SQLServerCentral Article

Upsizing the Access Database into the SQL Server

SQL Server and Access are usually linked together as Access used for applications at the beginning of their lifecycle that are later moved to SQL Server when the load gets too high or the data sizes grow. There are often cases where you may also want to use SQL Server as a backend to an Access application. But how do you get your data from Access to SQL Server? Author Dinesh Asanka brings us an overview of the various ways that you can move your Access database to SQL Server.

Technical Article

Slowly Changing Dimensions Are Not Always as Easy as 1, 2, 3

To kick off our first column of the year, we're going to take on a challenging subject that all designers face: how to deal with changing dimensions. Unlike most OLTP systems, a major objective of a data warehouse is to track history. So, accounting for change is one of the analyst's most important responsibilities. A sales force region reassignment is a good example of a business change that may require you to alter the dimensional data warehouse. We'll discuss how to apply the right technique to account for the change historically. Hang on to your hats — this is not an easy topic.

Technical Article

Installing and Configuring SQL Server Reporting Services

In this chapter, we discuss various installation setups you can use to install and configure Reporting Services. For the most part, this process is managed by the Setup.exe installation wizard, so expect to be prompted for a number of configuration options that determine how, where, and whether each segment of the Reporting Services package will be installed. We know that there are a variety of ways to install Reporting Services, so we've tried not only to address the common case, but also provide hints and techniques to be used for some of the more sophisticated installation scenarios. To make this process as painless as possible, we've broken this chapter down into several sections:

SQLServerCentral Article

Data Driven Architecture

Most SQL Server developers and DBAs are familiar with the concept of using a database as a back end to a web site or other application. However the database can be used to store more than just the data that users will edit. An interesting approach to application design begins with some knowledge of the metadata about the underlying data structures and using this to drive the application's behavior. New author Jim Craddock has utilized just such a concept in one if his applications and he brings us a look at how this works.

External Article

MDX Essentials: The CROSSJOIN() Function: Breaking Bottlenecks

In this article, we will return to a function we introduced in an earlier article, CROSSJOIN(), whose mission it is to combine two sets of dimension members into one. We will discuss how CROSSJOIN() works in general, and then discuss how its performance can become an issue in medium to large-sized data sets. We will then undertake a multiple-step practice example intended to assist us in gaining an understanding of the issues, before exposing approaches to minimizing the performance overhead that we can encounter in using CROSSJOIN() to reach our reporting and analysis needs.

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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