How to Batch Updates A Few Thousand Rows at a Time

In this post, Brent explains how to use a combination of two separate topics that he has blogged about recently.

Check Windows Services Status with T-SQL

In this article we look at creating a SQL Server stored procedure that displays a list of all Windows services based on running or stopped state.

Managing Cross-Database Object References

Phil Factor explains cross database and cross-server references, how to find them in your code, and when it's better to avoid hard-coding these references and use synonyms instead.

Using Triggers to Replace Scalar UDFs on Computed Columns

Using Triggers to Replace Scalar UDFs with Brent Ozar.

Dynamic Data Unmasking

The SQL Server 2016 dynamic data masking feature may seem like a great way to obfuscate data for downstream systems like dev and QA. Joe Obbish shows us that the data can be “unmasked” with T-SQL statements, so it’s not secure against anyone who can write their own queries.

Execute on DMVs without user having View Server State

Wanted to share this script to the community just in case anyone out there may be search for a way to allow a hosted customer the ability to query certain DMVs for information without granting them View Server State. There are some other options out there, but this worked better for me after going through […]

Delete Duplicate Rows with No Primary Key on a SQL Server Table

Every once in awhile a table gets created without a primary key and duplicate records get entered. The problem gets even worse when you have two identical rows in the table and there is no way to distinguish between the two rows. So how do you delete the duplicate record?

Half Of You Don’t Understand Variables and Transactions.

Do table variables and variables respect transactions? If we set the value of a variable during a transaction, and we roll it back, what happens?

Creating and Using Inline Table-Valued Functions

Inline Table Valued Functions (iTVFs) are one type of user defined function that is available to implement in SQL Server since SQL Server 2000.

iTVFs remain a very useful tool in our SQL armoury, so let's quickly revisit them and the different ways we can use them in our code.

Database Modeling - Relationships

A proper relationship between two people, places or things improves the communication between them. In every real-world based application, this logic holds and a database is no different. This article discusses the different relationship types possible between database objects. The designing of these relationships between them is called modeling, and the three types of relationships […]