Holger Schmeling SQL Server Statistics A Distribution Statistics object is a sampled map of the distribution of data in a table. Such statistics help the... 23 November 2010 3 min read
Red Gate Books The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team-based Development This book shows how to use a mixture of home-grown scripts, native SQL Server tools, and tools from the Red... 02 November 2010 5 min read
Joe Celko VALUES() and Long Parameter Lists – Part II The use of the comma-separated list of parameters to a SQL routine, that Phil Factor calls the 'comedy-limited list, is... 28 October 2010 10 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Defensive Error Handling TRY...CATCH error handling in SQL Server has certain limitations and inconsistencies that will trap the unwary developer, used to the... 28 October 2010 35 min read
Corrin Lakeland Snapper’s Sweet Source Control Corrin Lakeland's busy role as a Data Manager includes supervising the work of all database development. Although he was already... 12 October 2010 6 min read
Joe Celko State Transition Constraints Data Validation in a database is a lot more complex than seeing if a string parameter really is an integer.... 08 October 2010 13 min read
Timothy Ford Investigating Transactions Using Dynamic Management Objects There can be a great difference in the performance of a particular routine in a test database, and in a... 30 September 2010 39 min read
Rod Colledge Policy-based Management and Central Management Servers Whilst it may be more exciting as a DBA to rush around fixing broken databases, it is far better to... 30 September 2010 23 min read
Richard Morris Ted Krueger: DBA of the Day Ted Krueger is well known for his 'Less-Than Dot' website. He is a SQL Server MVP who has been working... 15 September 2010 12 min read
Andrew Clarke SQL Source Control: The Development Story, Part II When creating SQL Source Control, the team had to make decisions as to which source control systems the tool would... 02 September 2010 14 min read
Robert Sheldon The MERGE Statement in SQL Server 2008 When the SQL MERGE statement was introduced in SQL Server 2008, it allowed database programmers to replace reams of messy... 27 August 2010 14 min read
Brad McGehee Rebuilding Indexes using the SSMS Database Maintenance Wizard Index fragmentation can cause problems with query performance. Indexes therefore need to be occasionally rebuilt. the Rebuild Index task of... 18 August 2010 24 min read
Joe Celko The DIS-Information Principle: A Splitting Headache You can easily re-factor bad DML code, but if a database design is wrong, you can do little to rescue... 17 August 2010 10 min read
Louis Davidson Tim Ford DMVs for Query Plan Metadata Before you can tackle any performance issues with a working database, you need to know which queries to work on... 17 August 2010 57 min read
Mike Mooney When Database Source Control Goes Bad It is a question every development manager dreads; "So how does your company handle database changes?". The reply usually masks... 05 August 2010 25 min read
Joe Celko VALUES() and Long Parameter Lists To make progress as a relational Database programmer, you have to think in terms of sets, rather than lists, arrays... 22 July 2010 11 min read
Brad McGehee Automate and Improve Your Database Maintenance Using Ola Hallengren’s Free Script If you ever feel uneasy when you set about handcrafting database maintenance jobs for SQL Server, it may be the... 20 July 2010 35 min read
Richard Morris Tom Kyte: Geek of the Week Tom Kyte's contribution to the AskTom column and site over ten years has been outstanding. Much of what he says... 24 June 2010 20 min read
Jeremy Jarrell Multi-Tier Performance Tuning with ANTS Performance Profiler 6 When you are developing a database application that, by its very nature, suffers from I/O bottlenecks, you need to get... 23 June 2010 7 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Developing Modifications that Survive Concurrency You can create a database under the assumption that SQL looks after all the problems of concurrency. It will probably... 22 June 2010 40 min read
