Alex Kuznetsov Modifying Contiguous Time Periods in a History Table Alex Kuznetsov is credited with a clever technique for creating a history table for SQL that is designed to store... 25 November 2010 7 min read
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
T-SQL Programming Phil Factor in T-SQL Programming Consume & Query JSON in SQL Server with T-SQL Parse and consume JSON strings in SQL Server using T-SQL. Includes a custom JSON parser function, adjacency list techniques, and... 15 November 2010 26 min read
Benjamin Nevarez Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer This book will take you from the fundamentals of Statistics, Cost Estimation, Index Selection, and the Execution Engine, and guide... 08 November 2010 2 min read
Leidago Noabeb Using Table Valued Parameters with VB.NET SQL Server's Table-Valued Parameters are useful, and easy to use, but you should be aware that something that looks loke... 03 November 2010 13 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
Robert Sheldon Working with Window Functions in SQL Server With SQL Server 2005, SQL Server introduced some of SQL's window functions, that apply, not to the full set, but... 28 October 2010 12 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
Holger Schmeling SQL Server Statistics: Problems and Solutions SQL Server Statistics assist the query optimiser to calculate the best way of running the query. Holger describes every common... 27 October 2010 39 min read
Richard Morris Kevan Riley: DBA of the Day When the ASK.SQLServerCentral.com site started, something magical happened. A band of DBA and developer volunteers got together to ensure the... 18 October 2010 13 min read
Robert Sheldon Working with the INSERT statement in SQL Server The INSERT statement in SQL Server is versatile. It now allows the insertion of multiple rows of literal values. It... 27 September 2010 12 min read
T-SQL Programming Greg Larsen in T-SQL Programming Parameter Sniffing If a SQL query has parameters, SQL Server creates an execution plan tailored to them to improve performance, via a... 20 September 2010 13 min read
Jonathan Lewis Oracle to SQL Server: Putting the Data in the Right Place Jonathan Lewis is an Oracle expert who is recording his exploration of SQL Server in a series of articles. In... 17 September 2010 24 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
Fabiano Amorim Showplan Operator of the Week – Stream Aggregate Fabiano continues his mission to explain the Query Optimiser in practical terms, describing, one week at a time, all the... 10 September 2010 9 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
Bob Cramblitt Tracy Hamlin, Exceptional DBA of 2010, on what it means to go the extra mile Tracy Hamlin has been elected by judges and the SQL Server community as the Exceptional DBA of 2010. The annual... 18 August 2010 6 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
Kathi Kellenberger SSN Matching Speed Phreakery On Ask.SQLServerCentral.com, a group of people interested in experimenting with heavily optimised SQL techniques try them out on a problem,... 05 August 2010 18 min read
Greg Larsen Creative Solutions by Using a Number Table One irritating thing for the occasional SQL Server Developer is that the experts assume that you are familiar with the... 03 August 2010 16 min read
