Have you ever tried to open the current error log in Enterprise Manager only to have it seize up and hang? Has that annoyed you? It certainly annoyed Steve Jones and he decided to do something about it. A little techinque for helping to manage the size of those logs and prevent the "not responding" message from appearing in Task Manager.
This articles proposes storing the source code for stored procedures on disk rather than in the database itself, the intent to give developers the ability to easily change them or potentially to allow third party encryption of source code. (Note from SSC: If you choose to implement a technique like this, please be sure you understand the implications of exec'ing strings)
New Author! This is a fairly article that looks at how to do bulk data loading at a very (very) low level. You'll need to be able to read code to make use of this.
New author! Nick discusses why 'XML is One Answer', outlining some of what he believes are key points about using XML with SQL Server. This is a follow up (and sort of counter point) to another great article we had here on the site a couple weeks ago by Don Peterson. Good stuff!
This may well be more than you want to know about Unicode (and no, it's not a SQL article), but it's a pretty useful discussion to have.
Regular columnist Robert Marda discusses a few ideas on stored procedure documentation. How much documentation do you need and is "documentation" different than code comments?
Chris proposes a tool that would allow you to graphically see the space utilized by objects in a SQL database. Good idea?
Another adventure in the real world. Steve Jones tracks down a problem with locks on a live system. Read along and see how he works through the issues.
We agree with Andy that Terminal Services is definitely a tool to have in the DBA toolbox. Like most tools, everyone uses them differently. Andy starts the discussion with some comments on how he uses TS - what about you? Do you use TS at all? Use it differently than Andy does? Prefer a different solution? Read the article and post a comment.
Chris was kind enough to take some time to put this product through it's paces and ends up giving it a very good rating. Read the article to see a nice graphical walkthrough of how to use the product.
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When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
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