Eight Steps to Effective SQL Server Monitoring
If you need to start monitoring your SQL Server instances and database, and there are many good reasons to do so, Tony Davis gives you the eight essential steps to diagnosing problems quickly.
SQL Server Central Webinar Series #25 - Best Practices in Database Deployment Part 1: Aug 27th @ 4PM BST
Join Grant Fritchey (SQL Server MVP) as he tackles the most common problems and pitfalls of database deployment. He will explain how you (and your team) can make your deployment process, faster, more efficient and most importantly less stressful!
Teach Business Users How To Create Power View Reports With SQL Server Data Sources
Power View is a new tool for intuitive ad hoc SQL Server reporting which provides an interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience to the business users. But how do you create these Power View reports? Check out this tip to learn more.
SQL Saturday #246 Salt Lake City
SQL Saturday visits Salt Lake City on September 7 for a free day of SQL Server training and networking. SQL Saturday has partnered with with the Utah Hadoop User Group and Utah Geeks Events to create the Big Mountain Data Conference.
The Costs of Data
Information is free, but data certainly has a cost. Especially as there are real costs to storing and managing large volumes of bits and bytes.
Getting started with Power View Reports with SharePoint, Excel and SQL Server
Microsoft Business Intelligence stack provides several tools for analyzing data from different perspectives, in different format and different ways. Power View is a new addition to this arsenal which provides intuitive ad hoc reporting capabilities for business users to provide an interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience. But how does it work and how to get started with it?
Always Abstract
When developing your code, should you use views? There are reasons why you might choose to do so, or not do so, however Steve Jones thinks you should consider abstracting your systems.
News From EAP Testing
Jonathan Allen takes a peak at the EAP release of SQL Prompt 6 and some of the cool new things you can do to speed up writing SQL.
Guidance
When you are looking to help someone improve performance on a system, there isn't a single set of steps you provide. The advice and guidance you provide will vary, depending on the situation.
Blogs
Who Are You Doing It For?
By Brian Kelley
But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers