SQLServerCentral Article

The Fundamentals of SQL Server Replication by Sebastian Meine

Many of my clients need to make data that lives on one server available on another server. There are many reasons for such a requirement. You might want to speed up cross-server queries by providing a local copy of the data. Or you might want to make the data available to resource intensive reporting queries without impacting the OLTP load, maybe even with an intentional delay so you're always reporting against complete days only. Finally, you might be looking to implement high availability. In all these situations, SQL Server Replication is a viable option to look at when planning for the implemen­tation of such a requirement.

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SQL in the City Pasadena 2013

SQL in the City is coming to Pasadena on October 9. Register for a full day of free SQL Server training the Red Gate way. Top tips and best practices for SQL Server database development and administration will be presented by SQL Server MVP experts, including Steve Jones and Grant Fritchey. You’ll also see Red Gate tools in action and have the chance to network with other data professionals.

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Generating Random Numbers in SQL Server Without Collisions

From time to time, I see a requirement to generate random identifiers for things like users or orders. People want to use random numbers so that the "next" identifier is not guessable, or to prevent insight into how many new users or orders are being generated in a given time frame, but they don't want to run into any duplicates. We can trade a bit of disk space and relatively predictable (but not optimal) performance for the guarantee of no collisions, no matter how many random numbers we've already used.

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Question of the Day

Upgrading Admin Queries

I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?  

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