Robert Sheldon Implementing the OUTPUT Clause in SQL Server 2008 In retrospect, it was probably the inclusion of the OUTPUT clause in the MERGE statement that gave SQL Server 2008... 22 July 2010 17 min read
Andrew Clarke SQL Source Control: The Development Story Often, there is a huge difference between software being easy to use, and easy to develop. When your pilot users... 22 July 2010 21 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
Phil Factor SQL Server CRUD-Generation from System Views If you are not keen on repetitive typing, you can still rapidly produce production-quality documented code by planning ahead and... 09 July 2010 16 min read
Laerte Junior Gathering Perfmon Data with Powershell When you have to routinely collect data from Performance Monitor Counters, it soon becomes easier and more convenient to use... 08 July 2010 14 min read
Fabiano Amorim Showplan Operator of the Week – Row Count Spool The Row Count Spool operator is a simple component in an execution plan that can make an enormous difference to... 06 July 2010 5 min read
Fabiano Amorim Operator of the Week – Index Spool If you've ever wondered what happens to your queries if you're not conscientious about creating indexes, then Fabiano Amorim has... 25 June 2010 14 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
Jonathan Lewis Oracle to SQL Server, Crossing the Great Divide, Part 3 We soon learn, in SQL Server, that heaps are a bad thing, without necessarily understanding how or why. Jonathan Lewis... 23 June 2010 15 min read
Joe Celko Binary Trees in SQL A number of hierarchies and networks are most convenently modelled as binary trees. So what is the best way of... 22 June 2010 13 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
Robert Sheldon UPDATE Basics in SQL Server SQL Server's UPDATE statement is apparently simple, but complications such as the FROM clause can cause puzzlement. Bob Sheldon starts... 21 June 2010 17 min read
Louis Davidson Tim Ford Performance Tuning with SQL Server Dynamic Management Views This is the book that will de-mystify the process of using Dynamic Management Views to collect the information you need... 14 June 2010 4 min read
Josef Richberg SSIS and Parallelism: The Unseen Minions Sometimes, a procedural database process cannot easily be reduced to a set-based algorithm in order to reduce the time it... 10 June 2010 19 min read
Joe Celko Book Review: Defensive Database Programming With SQL Server It distils a great deal of practical experience; the writing of it was a considerable task; It packs in a... 10 June 2010 4 min read
Hima Bindu Vejella Book Review: The Art of XSD – SQL Server XML schemas The 14 chapters of "The Art of XSD", written by MVP Jacob Sebastian, will take the reader step-by-step all the... 10 June 2010 12 min read
Fabiano Amorim Showplan Operator of the Week – Lazy Spool Continuing to illuminate the depths of SQL Server's Query Optimizer, Fabiano shines a light on the sixth major Showplan Operator... 10 June 2010 9 min read
Laerte Junior I’m a SQL Server DBA, and I’m in Love with PowerShell To learn PowerShell, Laerte suggests that you just start using it. To encourage you to start, he provides a series... 28 May 2010 13 min read
Jonathan Lewis Oracle to SQL Server: Crossing the Great Divide, Part 2 A well-known Oracle expert records faithfully his struggles with the unfamiliar : SQL Server. He now sets himself the task... 26 May 2010 19 min read
