Jonathan Lewis

Execution Plans Part 8: Cost, time, etc.

It’s time to move away from the shape of an execution plan and turn our attention to some of the...

19 August 2014 11 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions about T-SQL Expressions You Were Too Shy to Ask

Nobody seems to ask questions about SQL Expressions in forums, even though expressions can cause all sorts of problems. Even...

13 August 2014 141 min read

Joshua Feierman

The Mindset of the Enterprise DBA: 8 Ways To Centralize Your Work

Although it is possible to provide good service to small to medium companies as a DBA without putting in place...

12 August 2014 10 min read

Phil Factor

Quickly Investigating What’s in the Tables of SQL Server Databases

From SQL Server Management Studio it is difficult to look through the first few rows of a whole lot of...

12 August 2014 27 min read

Matthew Skelton

Common database deployment blockers and Continuous Delivery headaches

Deployability is now a first class concern for databases, so why isn't it as easy as it should be? Matthew...

06 August 2014 17 min read

Joe Celko

The SQL of Membership: Equivalence Classes & Cliques

It is awkward to do 'Graph databases' in SQL to explore the sort of relationships and memberships in social networks...

28 July 2014 11 min read

Randolf Geist

Parallel Execution Skew – Skew Caused By Outer Joins

In the final part of this series I want to cover one last source of Parallel Execution Skew: Skew caused...

23 July 2014 6 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions about SQL Server Data Types You were Too Shy to Ask

Although SQL Data Types seem to cause a lot of grief for database developers and can be tricky in their...

14 July 2014 41 min read

Dwain Camps

Check Digits in T-SQL: UPC, Luhn, and IBAN Algorithms with Code

Calculate and verify check digits in T-SQL for Universal Product Codes (UPC), credit card numbers (Luhn algorithm), and International Bank...

11 July 2014 24 min read

Jonathan Lewis

Execution Plans Part 7: Query Blocks and Inline Views

When we examine an execution plan, we’re usually trying to work out the mechanical steps that Oracle took to produce...

09 July 2014 10 min read

Grant Fritchey

Why Put Your Database into Source Control?

Checking program code into source control is a daily ritual for most developers, but versioning database code is less well-understood....

08 July 2014 7 min read

Melanie Townsend

Avoiding Database Deployment Disasters – 7 Tips

Here are seven practical tips for any 'accidental DBA' or developer, faced with having to deploy an upgrade to a...

02 July 2014 7 min read

Saurabh Dhoble

Building a Custom SSIS Source Component in C#: PipelineComponent Inheritance, Metadata Definition, and GAC Deployment

Building a custom SSIS source component in C# - inheriting from PipelineComponent, implementing ProvideComponentProperties for metadata definition, PreExecute for initialisation,...

30 June 2014 22 min read

David Njoku

Oracle for Absolute Beginners: Part 8 – Database Design and Normalization

A wise man once said, I know one thing: that I know nothing. If you’ve followed this series from the...

27 June 2014 7 min read

Grant Fritchey

Rollback and Recovery Troubleshooting; Challenges and Strategies

What happens if your database deployment goes awry? Do you restore from a backup or snapshot and lose all the...

26 June 2014 16 min read

Joshua Feierman

The Mindset of the Enterprise DBA: Creating and Applying Standards to Our Work

Although many professions, such as pilots, surgeons and IT administrators, require judgement and skill, they also require the ability to...

25 June 2014 12 min read

Randolf Geist

Parallel Execution Skew – Addressing Skew Using Manual Rewrites

In this part of the series we will have a look at different approaches to how Parallel Execution Skew can...

23 June 2014 13 min read

Tony Davis

Database Branching and Merging Strategies

Source control will allow you to maintain branches in the development of your database, but the subsequent merge isn't pain-free....

18 June 2014 23 min read

Robert Sheldon

SQL Server Tables – 11 Questions You Were Too Shy to Ask

There are some aspects of tables in SQL Server that a lot of people get wrong, purely because they seem...

18 June 2014 35 min read

David Poole

Experiments with NEO4J: Using a graph database as a SQL Server metadata hub

NEO4J, the graph database, can be used to provide answers that are very tricky for relational databases, including providing diagrams...

17 June 2014 18 min read