Ed Pollack

Java HashCode in TSQL

December 28, 2016 by

The Java HashCode method is used to determine uniqueness or similarity of strings. While implemented in Java, there can be many benefits of creating a similar or customized version of this method.

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Daniel Calbimonte

FAQ about Dates in SQL Server

December 22, 2016 by

Introduction

In this article, I compiled a list of FAQs and Answers about dates.

  1. Which function should I use to get the current date in SQL Server?
  2. How can I get the current time in the format hh:mm:ss?
  3. How can I calculate my age in SQL Server with a birth date?
  4. How can I insert the current time by default in a SQL Server table?
  5. How can I check the total time that the employees of my company worked per day?
  6. How can I get the time of a specific region?
  7. How can I get the time of a specified Standard time?
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Gerald Britton

Why is my CTE so slow?

December 22, 2016 by

Introduction

Have you ever written up a complex query using Common Table Expressions (CTEs) only to be disappointed by the performance? Have you been blaming the CTE? This article looks at that problem to show that it is a little deeper than a particular syntax choice and offers some tips on how to improve performance.

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Daniel Calbimonte

SQL Server performance myth busters

December 21, 2016 by

Introduction

In this article, we will verify if the following statements are true or they are just myths:

  1. Truncate is faster than a delete and it consumes less space in the logs
  2. Do not use cursors to Create or drop multiple objects because it is very slow
  3. Do not use cursors to convert or process row values because it is very slow
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Sifiso Ndlovu

Top 5 New SQL Server 2016 DMVs for DBAs

December 20, 2016 by

Since its initial release that was part of SQL Server 2005, Dynamic Management Views (DMV) changed – mostly for the better – the role of database administration (DBA) within SQL Server-based environments. They improved the efficiency of DBAs regarding database server monitoring, issue diagnoses, and subsequent performance optimisation. As a result of this positive reception, it has become customary that some of the highly anticipated items in every release of SQL Server includes discovering what new DMVs will be added. In this article I take you through my favourite top 5 DMVs to come out of SQL Server 2016.

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Steve Simon

Reporting in SQL Server – Using calculated Expressions within reports

December 19, 2016 by

Introduction

Late in October, I received an unusual request from the head of sales within one of my client sites. Sales sells three articles: bread, perfume, and Jaguar motor cars. Now the reader will note that one of these items is a staple and the other two are for those folks with considerable disposable income. Management within the firm had increased the salesmen’s bonuses for those folks that managed to sell perfume and/or Jaguars along with the standard loaves of bread. The summary report may be seen below showing the final bonus rate for each sales order booked during the month.

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Aamir Syed

How to configure Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) in SQL Server

December 19, 2016 by

Introduction and Overview

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) was introduced in SQL Server 2008. Its main purpose was to protect data by encrypting the physical files, both the data (mdf) and log (ldf) files (as opposed to the actual data stored within the database). Transparent Data Encryption Encrypts SQL Server, Azure SQL Databases, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse data files.

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Dinesh Asanka

Point in Time Recovery with SQL Server

December 19, 2016 by

Introduction

How often are you working with multiple environments? For example, if you are a database administrator who is responsible for a production environment as well as another environment, it most likely that you will be working with both environments simultaneously. What is the probability that you will execute a script on production, which actually needs to be executed on the other environment? I would say it is high. To prove this point let me present you an example.

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Vitor Montalvão

Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v7.1 for Oracle

December 12, 2016 by

Introduction

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) is a free supported tool from Microsoft that simplifies and automates database migration processes (assessment analysis, necessary conversions, data migration and tests) from Microsoft Access, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase and DB2 to SQL Server, Azure SQL DB and SQL Server vNext (at the time I’m writing this article, SQL Server vNext stills in CTP1 version, so being a technical preview version it should not be used for production migrations).

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Steve Simon

How to use Expressions within SQL Server Reporting Services to create efficient reports

December 9, 2016 by

Introduction

As many of you by now know, I am a fan of utilizing expressions within Reporting Services reports to add additional flexibility. Recently I received a client request to create a stacked bar report which in turn would provide access to the underlying data the made up the bars on the chart. My client sells two articles: “Whigs” and “Tories”. Many people like to “buy” them.The idea is to display the aggregated data as may be seen below (gray black and turquoise) and depending on which bar and color is selected( clicked upon), to drill down and to display the underlying detailed data (see below).

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Sifiso Ndlovu

How to setup SQL Agent Job alerts to include SSIS catalog errors

December 7, 2016 by

I must have been one of the first people who abandoned BIDS as soon as SSDT was first introduced. Although I have never regretted that decision, I do sometimes feel that SSDT has introduced an unnecessary additional layer of troubleshooting package execution failures. Regardless of whether your SSIS packages are deployed using BIDS or SSDT, the common scheduling mechanism used to run those packages is usually the SQL Server Agent. This is where you are likely to encounter additional layers of troubleshooting SSDT-deployed packages. This is because unlike BIDS where package execution details were stored in the same database (msdb) as were the execution details of SQL Server Agent job, the advent of SSDT came with an introduction a new database – SSISDB – which is used to, amongst other things, store package execution details. Subsequently, in order to retrieve details of package execution, we ought to query the SSIDB database.

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Daniel Tikvicki

How to use SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) query results in Excel with Power Pivot

December 2, 2016 by

Prerequisites for using query results from any Analysis Services model database in Excel through Power Pivot add-in are SQL Server 2014 or higher with installed Analysis Services Tabular instance (Multidimensional is installed by default), deployed Multidimensional or Tabular model database (for data source) and Power Pivot add-in for Excel 2010 or higher (Power Pivot is native add-in in Excel 2016).

In this article, the custom SSAS Tabular model database will be used (“AW Tabular”) as an external data source.

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Gerald Britton

How to see the schema of a result set before running a query

November 30, 2016 by

Introduction

Suppose you’ve been asked to run a query against some SQL Server database but you don’t know anything more than the name of a stored procedure that you need to call. If you are going to do anything with the result set, you need to know at least the names and types of the columns to expect. This is actually a problem faced by many applications, including SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

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