Aaron Bertrand in SQL Server Storing Weekday Sets in SQL Server Using Bitwise Flags: Schedules and Recurring Jobs Store and query sets of weekdays in SQL Server using bitwise flags - each day encoded as a power of... 02 August 2024 7 min read 1
Ben Johnston in SQL Server SQL Server Configuration Audit: Complete Checklist and T-SQL Scripts Complete SQL Server configuration audit checklist with T-SQL scripts: edition and patch level, file locations, sp_configure settings, logon triggers, login... 25 July 2024 22 min read 1
Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Index cleanup : Harder than it looks I’m not the first person to write about cleaning up unused or redundant indexes. You can read many articles about... 22 July 2024 7 min read
Ben Johnston in SQL Server How to successfully execute a SQL Server hardware audit (complete guide) Learn how to audit SQL Server hardware and Azure cloud configuration — covering CPU, memory, storage, OS version, and backups... 17 July 2024 14 min read
Aaron Bertrand in Database Administration It’s a recovery strategy, not a backup strategy I’ve talked about it before; you shouldn’t have a backup strategy, you should have a recovery strategy. I can’t possibly... 08 July 2024 12 min read
Edward Pollack in T-SQL Programming XML Performance Tuning and Added Options SQL Server provides a variety of ways to tune XML so that it provides consistent performance, consumes less space, all... 21 June 2024 12 min read
Ben Johnston in SQL Server SQL Server Audit Checklist: Discovery & Setup Audit SQL Server with a structured discovery checklist. Covers server configuration, disk and memory, backups, security, database settings, and code... 06 June 2024 30 min read
T-SQL Programming Edward Pollack in T-SQL Programming Store, Parse & Convert XML in SQL Server Master XML handling in SQL Server: store XML in typed columns, parse with XQuery and OPENXML, convert between XML and... 03 June 2024 22 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Snake Draft Sorting in SQL Server Part 4: Coordinating Parallel Job Completion Part 4 of the snake-draft sorting series - coordinating parallel SQL Agent jobs when work units finish at different times.... 27 May 2024 10 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Snake Draft Sorting in SQL Server Part 3: Balancing Work Across Tables Within One Database Part 3 of the snake-draft sorting series - extending the technique from balancing work across databases (parts 1-2) to balancing... 15 May 2024 5 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Snake draft sorting in SQL Server, part 2 Part of a series: [ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ] In my previous... 15 April 2024 7 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming Snake Draft Sorting in SQL Server: Distributing Workloads Evenly (Part 1) Snake draft sorting in SQL Server divides processing tasks into evenly-distributed groups by assigning work in a serpentine order. Part... 12 April 2024 8 min read
T-SQL Programming Aaron Bertrand in T-SQL Programming SQL Server Pagination Performance: Sorting by Large Text Columns SQL Server OFFSET-FETCH pagination becomes extremely slow when sorting by large text columns (varchar(max), nvarchar(max)). Learn to fix it using... 25 March 2024 9 min read
Database Administration Aaron Bertrand in Database Administration Get the most out of SQL Server Agent logs If you haven’t migrated your workloads to a managed database platform yet, you’re probably still relying on SQL Server Agent... 11 March 2024 6 min read
Ben Johnston in SQL Server Batch Delete in SQL Server: Six Patterns for Large-Scale DELETE Operations Six practical T-SQL patterns for deleting large numbers of rows in SQL Server without locking tables, blocking users, or growing... 01 March 2024 25 min read
T-SQL Programming Edward Pollack in T-SQL Programming Find and Replace Text in Strings in T-SQL String manipulation is an inevitable task for developers and data professionals alike. Despite all the best efforts to normalize databases,... 29 February 2024 17 min read
Database Administration Aaron Bertrand in Database Administration Upgrade SQL Server on your workstation Lately, I’ve seen many people struggling to upgrade their workstation to the latest version of SQL Server. The main source... 26 February 2024 6 min read
PowerShell Laerte Junior in PowerShell Automating BCP with PowerShell I was talking with a good friend that has an environment with terabytes of information and to create a homolog... 09 February 2024 8 min read
Database Administration Edward Pollack in Database Administration The Importance of Retention It is always an afterthought. New objects are created that start off small and current. New feature development takes over... 19 January 2024 24 min read
Ben Johnston in SQL Server 11 proven data warehouse load patterns (complete guide, part two) 11 proven data warehouse load patterns — revised date, modified flag, hash comparison, history tables, and more — with the... 31 December 2023 30 min read