Slicing and Dicing
There can be a lot more value when pieces of data are put together than when they exist separately. Steve Jones comments on a few ways people are repackaging information in the modern world.
How to Use Microsoft's AMR Tool
In order to help DBAs determine which tables and stored procedures might be good to take advantage of using the new In-Memory OLTP tables in SQL Server 2014, Microsoft introduced the AMR Utility. Greg Larsen explores how to use this tool.
Removing the Linked Server 2 hop Limitation
This article talks about how you can get around the "Login Failed for user 'NT Authority\ANONYMOUS' LOGON" error when using linked servers and Windows authentication.
SQL Saturday #272 - Nashville, TN
SQL Saturday is coming to Nashville on January 18th 2014. This is a free full day of SQL Server training and networking. There are also paid-for Pre-con sessions available to sign up for presented by Denny Cherry and David Klee.
SQL Server tablediff utility
Rob Sheldon continues on his quest to explain all those command-line tools such as SQLCMD, Logparser, SQLIO and tablediff that are part of SQL Server. TableDiff can be used for comparing tables, as when you run automated tests that check a result against a table of expected values. The best way to learn TableDiff is to see it in action and Rob talks you through several examples.
Congratulations to our Apology Contest Winners
A congratulations to the winners of our contest last week.
Encrypt Everything
Yahoo recently announced they are encrypting their traffic between data centers. Steve Jones thinks we should encrypt all traffic.
Regrets of the Last Decade
After Steve Ballmer shares some of his thoughts on his time as CEO, Steve Jones decided to give a few of his own thoughts.
Import UTF-8 Unicode Special Characters with SQL Server Integration Services
If you work with large scale SSIS ETL processes and sequences, you are bound to have to work with UTF-8 encoded text files. Without proper handling, UTF-8 / Unicode characters can cause havoc with your SSIS load tasks. Here are some ideas for handling the UTF-8 file formats with SSIS.
Webinar: T-SQL Tips and Tricks
Nigel Sammy will be presenting this PASS Data Architecture VC webinar on December 19 at 12PM CST. The webinar will share insight on how basic query structure and logic works so you can avoid wasting too much time on trial and error when writing queries.
Blogs
ISACA AI Material/Exam Prep Discount (May 18 – June 30, 2026)
By Brian Kelley
If you are considering any of the ISACA AI certs like the Advanced Artificial...
A Fabric solution can be very cost effective
By ChrisJenkins
Are you currently using Microsoft Fabric or considering migrating to it? If so, there...
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log
By SQLPals
Track SQL Server Configuration Changes Using the Error Log If you...
Forums
We Are Eating Our Own Seed Corn
Comments posted to this topic are about the item We Are Eating Our Own...
Before Using AI with Business Data, Read This
Artificial intelligence tools are quickly becoming part of daily business operations, from document analysis...
Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines That Don't Break at Scale
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Designing SQL Server ETL Pipelines...
Question of the Day
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
In the Database Engine, when a deadlock is detected, what does the detection interval shrink to (in time)?
See possible answers