The Growth of Storage
This week Steve Jones asks you to predict the future of hardware. When will we have laptops that rival the specs of today's large SQL Server servers.
Working With Multi-Select Parameters for SSRS Reports
Multi-select parameters give your users control over their reports while reducing the number of reports they have to work with. This example demonstrates how to create a multi-select parameter list and pass the values to a stored procedure that will then populate the report.
Fun with ACID
What is ACID and why should we care? A look at the principal that drives all database and DB management software design: A.C.I.D.
Serious Security
The password issue has Steve Jones concerned. So many of us that use computing devices don't do a good job of securing our information.
Free eBook: SQL Server Execution Plans
Every Database Administrator, developer, report writer, and anyone else who writes T-SQL to access SQL Server data, must understand how to read and interpret execution plans. This book leads you right from the basics of capturing plans, through how to interrupt them in their various forms, graphical or XML, and then how to use the information you find there to diagnose the most common causes of poor query performance, and so optimize your SQL queries, and improve your indexing strategy.
Handling Errors in SQL Server 2012
The error handling of SQL Server has always been somewhat mysterious. Now at last, the THROW statement has been included in SQL Server 2012 that, when combined with the TRY...CATCH block, makes error handling far easier. Robert Sheldon explains all.
Message Queues in Software
Steve Jones talks about Service Broker and messaging and how these techniques can help you build a more robust application.
SQL Server T-SQL Tuning – NOT IN and NOT Exists
Following on from the previous TSQL performance tuning article in this series, we now focus on the important topic of T-SQL “Not IN” And “Not Exists “
Cramming for Interviews
Today Steve Jones talks about the questions people ask on the Internet about interviews. Are they ok? Should you cram for an interview this way?
SQLServerCentral Runs sp_Blitz - Reliability
The second article that examines the output of the sp_Blitz script™ run against SQLServerCentral's database servers.
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