Large Chunks of Data
This Friday Steve Jones talks reporting. Specifically he wonders how long can a report be before it's just wasting space.
Azure Active Directory - Schema Extensions
The Azure Active Directory Graph API enables some interesting scenarios that you can implement in your applications by enabling you to query and manipulate directory objects in Azure AD. In this article, Rick Rainey provides a clear walkthrough of its implementation.
A More Versatile SQL Server Random Number Function
Image a situation when you use the SQL Server RAND() T-SQL function as a column in a SELECT statement, and the same value is returned for every row as shown below. In this tip, Dallas Snider explains how you can get differing random values on each row.
Get Your Service Broker Messages in Order. Always.
Learn how you can guarantee the ordering of all messages in a Service Broker queue, regardless of conversations.
Deploying the same database to many different RDBMSs
With the idea of a generic Dacpac defined by international standard, comes the potential for a Visual Studio developer to use SSDT to create a generic database model to a SQL-92 compliant standard that can then be deployed to any one of the major RDBMSs. The same database model would be deployable to Oracle, MySQL, or SQL Server, for example. Professor Hugh Bin-Haad explains the reasoning and technology behind this.
Finally, a Universal Data Integration Utility
Earlier today, a revolutionary product was released: a universal data integration utility.
Time to Rebrand
I became a SQL guy back in 1998 because the company that hired me used SQL Server. It’s been a good ride and it’s paid the bills, but after 15 years or so it’s time to do something different.
Shredding Unicode Japanese characters using SSIS
This articles describes two ways to shred Unicode Japanese character from xls files into SQL Server table using SSIS
Source Code Security
The code you use may contain security information. Be extra careful in this case, especially when you use encryption.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
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?
See possible answers