Joe Celko BIT of a Problem The BIT data type is an awkward fit for a SQL database. It doesn't have just two values, and it... 04 January 2011 12 min read
Phil Factor The Parodist: A SQL Server Application Every year, we ask Phil Factor to celebrate the holiday season with an article on SQL Server Programming that is... 20 December 2010 18 min read
Troy Hunt Foolproof Atomic Versioning of Applications Bad things tend to happen to developments where the scripts for the database layer are left out of source control.... 08 December 2010 9 min read
Glenn Berry SQL Server Hardware SQL Server Hardware will provide the fundamental knowledge and resources you need to make intelligent decisions about choice, and optimal... 08 December 2010 3 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Tuning SQL Queries with the Help of Constraints The use of constraints is a valuable way of improving query performance as well as maintaining the integrity of the... 07 December 2010 7 min read
Brad McGehee Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Storage Compress SQL Storage Compress does just that, and encrypts as well, allowing the files associated with a live database to take... 07 December 2010 27 min read
Michael Francis SQL Source Control – Less Pain for Red Jungle As a dedicated 'twitcher', Michael's eye is caught by a 'tweet' from Red Jungle. In this case, it was not... 26 November 2010 5 min read
Richard Morris Jorge Segarra: DBA of the Day Jorge Segarra, also known on Twitter as 'SQLChicken', was one of the finalists of the Exceptional DBA award this year.... 26 November 2010 13 min read
Benjamin Nevarez Index Selection and the Query Optimizer While we all know that the Query Optimizer uses Indexes to produce better execution plans, we don't all know exactly... 25 November 2010 23 min read
Robert Sheldon The DELETE statement in SQL Server Of the big four DML statements in SQL Server, the DELETE is the one least written about. This is odd... 25 November 2010 11 min read
Laerte Junior Fun with SQL Server Profiler trace files and PowerShell Running Profiler traces against multiple servers becomes a painful process when it's time to collate and filter all that data.... 25 November 2010 13 min read
Patrick Index Executing SSIS Packages continued When Nigel Rivett wrote his article about Executing SSIS packages for Simple-Talk, four years ago, it proved very popular and... 25 November 2010 5 min read
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
Fabiano Amorim ShowPlan Operator of the Week – Merge Join Did you ever wonder how and why your indexes affect the performance of joins? Once you've read Fabiano's unforgettable explanation,... 22 November 2010 9 min read
Joe Celko Contiguous Time Periods It is always better, and more efficient, to maintain referential integrity by using constraints rather than triggers. Sometimes it is... 22 November 2010 13 min read
Phil Factor Consuming JSON Strings in SQL Server It has always seemed strange to Phil that SQL Server has such complete support for XML, yet is completely devoid... 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