Alexander Karmanov Automating SQL Server Database Deployments: Scripting Details To wrap up the series on Database Deployment Challenges, Alexander takes a dive into the details of how he scripted... 06 June 2013 30 min read
Phil Factor SQL Server CREATE TABLE syntax diagrams Many of us have seen, on MSDN, the heading 'Syntax', followed by a rash of nested brackets and keywords, enough... 06 June 2013 8 min read
Andy Brown Moving Data From Excel to SQL Server – 10 Steps to Follow SQL Server Integration Services provide a versatile way of reading Excel files into SQL Server. A task like this illustrates... 21 May 2013 15 min read
Grant Fritchey The DBA Detective: The Case of the Missing Index When problems arise in SQL Server, we're faced with a server full of suspects, including disk I/O, memory, CPU, incorrect... 15 May 2013 12 min read
Allen White Backup and Restore SQL Server with the SQL Server 2012 PowerShell cmdlets There are plenty of occasions when it makes a lot of sense to do backup and restore scripts in PowerShell.... 03 May 2013 15 min read
Tools Michael Sorens in Tools MySQL Compare: The Manual That Time Forgot, Part 1 Although SQL Compare, for SQL Server, is one of Redgate's best-known products, there are also 'sister' tools that allow you... 03 May 2013 14 min read
Holger Schmeling Developing a Report Definition Customization Extension for Multi-Language Reports When you need to present the same SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report in eight or more different languages, or... 19 April 2013 31 min read
Seth Delconte Introduction to SQL Server Filtered Indexes SQL Server filtered indexes can save space and improve performance if they are used properly. Under what circumstances can they... 19 April 2013 13 min read
Grant Fritchey Custom Metrics for Monitoring Database Mirroring SQL Monitor comes with plenty of metrics, but there are always going to be things that you want to measure... 16 April 2013 7 min read
Robert Sheldon Getting Started Testing Databases with tSQLt There are several frameworks for assisting with the testing of SQL Server databases, but tSQLt is popular because it is... 08 April 2013 22 min read
Erin Stellato Managing SQL Server Statistics Accurate statistics about the data held in tables are used to provide the best execution strategy for SQL queries. but... 03 April 2013 31 min read
Hugh Bin-Haad TSQL Pivot Rotations using only REPLACE Pivoting SQL Server tables is always awkward, even with the PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators. If you want to get the... 01 April 2013 8 min read
Kathi Kellenberger Solving Complex T-SQL Problems, Step-By-Step What should you do if your first, most intuitive solution to a problem ends up scanning the data more than... 18 March 2013 19 min read
Tony Davis Shawn McGehee Managing the SQL Server Transaction Log: Dealing with Explosive Log Growth You've just become responsible for a database, only to find that the log file is growing out of control. Why... 14 March 2013 13 min read
Seth Delconte Ad-Hoc XML File Querying When you need to shred just part of the data within a large XML file into a SQL Server table,... 05 March 2013 15 min read
Robert Sheldon SQL Server 2012 Window Function Basics For some time, Microsoft had a few window functions, but not the full set specified in the SQL 2003 standard.... 05 March 2013 21 min read
Alexander Karmanov Automating SQL Server Database Deployments: A Worked Example Alex talks through a simple practical example of a database deployment, First creating a empty database and then upgrading it... 27 February 2013 21 min read
Robert Sheldon Some Books on Programming SQL Server 2012 It is a measure of the range of facilities that are available to the database developer nowadays that three different... 21 February 2013 12 min read
Feodor Georgiev Full Text Searches on Documents in FileTables SQL Server's FileTable technology is an intriguing way of accomodating file-based text data in a database, and allowing for complex... 14 February 2013 11 min read
Grant Fritchey SQL Server Statistics Questions We Were Too Shy to Ask If you need to optimise SQL Server performance, it pays to understand SQL Server Statistics. Grant Fritchey answers the 18... 12 February 2013 17 min read