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SQL Server Expert Blogs
SQL Source Control: The Development Story
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 07/22/2010 - 00:00
Often, there is a huge difference between software being easy to use, and easy to develop. When your pilot users tell you "by week three of any development project you've thrown out anything that takes time or just gets in your way", then it is time to be serious about usability, as well as quality. We decided to find out from some of those at the sharp end of the development of Red Gate's SQL Source Control.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
VALUES() and Long Parameter Lists
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 07/22/2010 - 00:00
To make progress as a relational Database programmer, you have to think in terms of sets, rather than lists, arrays or sequential data. Until that point, you'll feel the need to pass lists, arrays and the like to functions and procedures. Joe suggests some unusual ways around the difficulty and broods on the power of the VALUES constructor.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Automate and Improve Your Database Maintenance Using Ola Hallengren's Free Script
Simple-Talk on SQL - Tue, 07/20/2010 - 00:00
If you ever feel uneasy when you set about handcrafting database maintenance jobs for SQL Server, it may be the voice of your conscience saying 'Ola, Ola!'. Follow your conscience. Ola Hallengren has already crafted a superb set of routines to do this for you. Why reinvent something that does it all, safely and well. Brad McGehee explains....
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Temp table name resolution
Linchi Shea - Thu, 07/15/2010 - 14:33
I was reading Michael Coles' post on Dynamic SQL and Late Binding , and it reminded me of an issue I struggled with a while back. The issue started out as a local temp table name resolution issue. But it was also a compilation time vs. run time issue,...(read more)
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
SQL Server CRUD-Generation from System Views
Simple-Talk on SQL - Fri, 07/09/2010 - 00:00
If you are not keen on repetitive typing, you can still rapidly produce production-quality documented code by planning ahead and using Extended properties, and system views. Phil Factor explains, with some Scary SQL
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Database Source Control - The Cribsheet
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 07/08/2010 - 00:00
As part of our long-running Cribsheet series, we asked William to come up with a brief summary of what was involved in bringing database development work under source control. What are the advantages it brings, and are there disadvantages?
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Gathering Perfmon Data with Powershell
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 07/08/2010 - 00:00
When you have to routinely collect data from Performance Monitor Counters, it soon becomes easier and more convenient to use PowerShell. SQL Server MVP Laerte Junior was inspired to create a script, and guides us through its useful functions.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Redesigning Red Gate's SQL Monitoring and Alerting Tool
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 07/08/2010 - 00:00
It isn't easy re-designing a successful tool, but it is fascinating work. Andrew Clarke talks about the challenges with Tom Randle and Adam Walker, the user experience designer and usability test coordinator, behind Red Gate’s SQL Server monitoring and alerting tool SQL Response v2.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
New Features in Reporting Services 2008 and 2008 R2
Simple-Talk on SQL - Tue, 07/06/2010 - 00:00
Quietly, Microsoft has been making radical improvements to Reporting Services; but precisely what was introduced, and when? We asked Bill Pearson, the well-known BI expert, to come up with a definitive survey of the more recent changes and how they help the user of Reporting Services.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Showplan Operator of the Week - Row Count Spool
Simple-Talk on SQL - Tue, 07/06/2010 - 00:00
The Row Count Spool operator is a simple component in an execution plan that can make an enormous difference to SQL query plans that would otherwise read a table on every row of the inner input to a nested loop. As this is a common type of query, it illustrates the power that a knowledge of your showplan operators can give you.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Operator of the Week - Index Spool
Simple-Talk on SQL - Fri, 06/25/2010 - 00:00
If you've ever wondered what happens to your queries if you're not conscientious about creating indexes, then Fabiano Amorim has yet another nugget of Execution Plan wisdom for you. The Query Optimizer's solution is to use the Nonclustered Index Spool, and we're about to learn why.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Oracle to SQL Server, Crossing the Great Divide, Part 3
Simple-Talk on SQL - Wed, 06/23/2010 - 00:00
We soon learn, in SQL Server, that heaps are a bad thing, without necessarily understanding how or why. Jonathan Lewis is an Oracle expert who doesn't like to take such strictures for granted, especially when they don't apply to Oracle. Jonathan discovers much about how SQL Server places data, and concludes from his experiments that heaps perform badly in SQL Server because you cannot specify a fill factor for them.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Binary Trees in SQL
Simple-Talk on SQL - Tue, 06/22/2010 - 00:00
A number of hierarchies and networks are most convenently modelled as binary trees. So what is the best way of representing them in SQL? Joe discards the Nested Set solution in favour of surprisingly efficient solution based on the Binary Heap.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Developing Modifications that Survive Concurrency
Simple-Talk on SQL - Tue, 06/22/2010 - 00:00
You can create a database under the assumption that SQL looks after all the problems of concurrency. It will probably work fine under test conditions: Then, in the production environment, it starts losing data in subtle ways that defy repetition. It is every Database Developer's nightmare. In an excerpt from his acclaimed book, Alex explains why it happens, and how you can avoid such problems.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
UPDATE Basics in SQL Server
Simple-Talk on SQL - Mon, 06/21/2010 - 00:00
SQL Server's UPDATE statement is apparently simple, but complications such as the FROM clause can cause puzzlement. Bob Sheldon starts simply, and introduces the more complex forms painlessly.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Book Review: Defensive Database Programming With SQL Server
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 06/10/2010 - 00:00
It distils a great deal of practical experience; the writing of it was a considerable task; It packs in a great deal of information. Alex's book shows how to write robust database applications, and we can all learn from it. We took the book to a critic who never minces his words, and were relieved to find that Joe Celko liked it.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Book Review: The Art of XSD - SQL Server XML schemas
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 06/10/2010 - 00:00
The 14 chapters of "The Art of XSD”, written by MVP Jacob Sebastian, will take the reader step-by–step all the way from the basics of XML Schema design all the way to advanced topics on SQL Server XML Schema Collections. Reviewer Hima Bindu Vejella gives it an 8/10 rating, and gives us an excellent distilled description of what the book has to offer.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Showplan Operator of the Week - Lazy Spool
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 06/10/2010 - 00:00
Continuing to illuminate the depths of SQL Server's Query Optimizer, Fabiano shines a light on the sixth major Showplan Operator on his list: the Lazy Spool. What does the Lazy Spool do that's so special, how does the Query Optimizer use it, and why is it so Lazy? Fabiano explains all...
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
SSIS and Parallelism: The Unseen Minions
Simple-Talk on SQL - Thu, 06/10/2010 - 00:00
Sometimes, a procedural database process cannot easily be reduced to a set-based algorithm in order to reduce the time it takes. Then, you have to find other ways to parallelise it. Other ways? Josef shows how to use SSIS to drastically reduce the time that such a process takes.
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
Rebuilding system databases in 2008 R2
Tibor Karaszi - Thu, 06/03/2010 - 04:15
UPDATE: Apparently, a workaround is to use SETUP.EXE from install media (and not the locally installed SETUP.EXE). See the connect item mentioned below. All my attempts so far to rebuild the system databases in 2008 R2 has failed. I first tried to run...(read more)
Categories: SQL Server Expert Blogs
