Getting Started with Azure
Many people have been unsure of cloud computing and what it means for your particular application. Steve Jones notes there's a great new demo that can help you get started exploring the Azure offerings.
How Many Passwords?
How many passwords do you have? Steve Jones has a lot and while he notes there are some new ways for us to authorize ourselves for servers, they aren't necessarily making things more secure or less complex.
Windows Azure SQL Database - Uploading Data by Using the bcp Utility
Instead of using a custom SSIS-based project to upload content from an on-premise SQL Server database to Azure PaaS-based SQL Database, Marcin Policht presents an alternative approach. Using the bcp utility not only eliminates the need for any custom development, but also rivals SSIS in terms of its data transfer efficiency.
Automate Sliding Window Partition Maintenance: Part II
Part 2 of a series on how to automate partition management. In this article learn how easy managing and maintaining a sliding window partition scheme can be with PowerShell.
Squeezing the DBA
What do you do as a DBA if you get asked to cook the books? With the economy doing poorly, some executives will be tempted to mis-report earnings and they might ask the technical people to help. Steve Jones has a few thoughts.
Big Data Basics - Introduction to HDFS
One of the core components of the Hadoop framework and responsible for the storage aspect is HDFS. Unlike the usual storage available on our computers, HDFS is a Distributed File System and parts of a single large file can be stored on different nodes across the cluster. Here are some of the key concepts related to HDFS.
Speakers Needed - SQL Saturday #292 Detroit
SQL Saturday #292 in Detroit, MI, is looking for speakers. The event is May 17, 2014, and there are still some speaking slots available.
#sqlhelp
The #sqlhelp hashtag on Twitter is a great way to interact with the SQL Server community and get help.
SFTP, encrypt or compress data files in SSIS using custom components
SQL Server Integration Services does not provide native SFTP, encryption or archiving task components. This article presents a set of open source custom task components that provides these functions.
Seven SQL Server Under-Used Utilities
There are many useful command-line applications that are either associated with, or are distributed with, SQL Server. They all have their uses and several become important as part of script-based automation of tasks. It is definitely worth knowing what is lurking in your tools\binn directory.
Blogs
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
Forums
Learning From Breakage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Learning From Breakage
Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Python in Action to Auto-Generate...
Adding and Dropping Columns I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns I
Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns I
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use? See possible answers