A Billion Transactions
A billion transactions is a lot of activity on your database, however Steve Jones thinks more and more of us might see this on a regular basis. Microsoft's facilities group shows this to be the case.
Excuses Execrating Excel
A bad workman always blames his tools. So does the entire western media, it seems, as poor old Excel gets it in the neck for some appalling calculation errors in economic papers.
Stay Backed Up by Monitoring Your Backup Process
Based on a linked server setup, you can check your SQL Server backups on multiple instances.
Diagnosing Common Database Ails
When a database starts showing signs of an illness, it's up to the DBA to get to the root of the problem, fast. Kat Hicks takes a look at the most common causes of database troubles, free tools that can help, and the misconceptions that get in the way.
Upgrading to 2012
Are many people upgrading to SQL Server 2012? Is it worth the cost for your company for any existing instances? Steve Jones asks the question this week.
Using Regular Expressions to Convert PL/SQL code to T-SQL
When converting Oracle PL/SQL to T-SQL, there are a number of ways to do this, but this article shows us how this can be done with regular expressions in Management Studio.
Comparison of Queries Written in T-SQL and SQL Server MDX
Beginning to learn and comprehend SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) MDX queries can be difficult after one has spent years writing queries in T-SQL. When trying to write SQL Server MDX queries, it's worth considering "How would I write this query in T-SQL?"
Asking for Interview Questions
When someone asks for interview questions on the web, it seems many people are upset. But should they be? Steve Jones points out there are different sides to this.
SQL 2000 DBA Toolkit Part 1
SQL Server 2005 builds some great encryption tools into the product, but what if you are stuck with SQL Server 2000? SQL Server expert Michael Coles brings us the first part of a series along with a free toolkit to manage encryption and keys.
Disaster Recovery in the Enterprise – Paying the Price to Avoid Extra Costs
Data Protection and Disaster Recovery (DR) are IT tasks that seldom get the same level of attention as development… until disaster strikes. Only if planning is adequate can an organisation be resilient in the face of unexpected problems. There are several steps that are needed to achieve an adequate DR process and the ability to restore business operations after a disaster.
Blogs
Learn Better: Pause to Review More
By Brian Kelley
If you want to learn better, pause more in your learning to intentionally review.
Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-Gen: Bring on the IOPS
By John
If you’ve used Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose, you know the drill: to...
SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data
By DataOnWheels
Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...
Forums
Two foreign keys to the same table. Can't cascade deletes.
Not sure if this is really a relational theory question but it seems about...
Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working
Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...
High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?
Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...
Question of the Day
Encoding URLs
I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table:
CREATE TABLE Response ( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY , ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000) ) GOIf I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use? See possible answers