Learn about the types of indexes that can be created and how to proactively choose the right indexes for your systems, and how to find missing and inefficient indexes on an existing instances of SQL Server.
In a previous tip, I demonstrated how to rename physical database files for a SQL Server database using the GUI. In this tip, I will demonstrate how to do this using T-SQL.
You want to create a SQL Server T-SQL function similar to Oracle's INITCAP PL/SQL function that returns a string with the first letter of each word in upper-case and all the other letters in lower-case.
SQL Server 2005 introduced the APPLY operator, which is very much like a join clause and which allows joining between two table expressions i.e. joining a left/outer table expression with a right/inner table expression. The difference between join and APP
After recently upgrading a SQL Server instance to SQL Server 2012 a few days ago, you noticed that your application is not functioning properly. You decided to roll back the upgrade by downgrading the SQL Server database engine to SQL Server 2008 R2. Aft
In my last article, I talked about how you can use an FTP task in SSIS to download files from an FTP server. But what if the file you have downloaded is an XML file and you need to import this data from the XML file into a SQL Server table? In this tip we
This paper demystifies query tuning by providing a rigorous 12-step process that database professionals at any level can use to systematically assess and adjust query performance, starting from the basics and moving to advanced query tuning techniques.
On June 5, 2006 MSSQLTips.com started with just one tip in an effort to offer solutions to real world SQL Server problems. Ten years later, we never expected MSSQLTips.com to grow into a global community of millions of SQL Server Professionals.
You need to create project files for a SSAS tabular database deployed on a SSAS Tabular Instance, but you don't have access to the project source for some reason. Creating an entire project from scratch that reflects the deployed database is not an option
Microsoft SQL Server Extended Events, a replacement for SQL Trace, provides a useful and very customizable framework for managing very technical, low-level event information about a SQL Server database and its instances. However...
This tip will explain the differences between the following COUNT function varieties: COUNT(*) vs. COUNT(1) vs. COUNT(column_name) to determine if there is a performance difference.
You may have been in a scenario where you need to quickly generate a script to drop and then subsequently re-create all of the foreign keys in a database. In this tip I provide a script to do this for you.
In older versions of SQL Server a large amount of data changes needed to occur to trigger auto update statistics. In SQL Server 2016 this has been changed.
We are using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2016. I'd like to create a key performance indicator (KPI) to track the status of my orders. I'd also like to show this KPI on any mobile device. Read this tip to learn how.
We need to programmatically validate our SQL Server database backups are not corrupted and that the backup can be successfully restored. We have limited storage and time so we are unable to actually restore the database. Are there any options to validate
In this free white paper, SQL expert, Joey D’Antoni discusses the costs associated with high availability and disaster protection in a SQL Server environment.
I need to load the results from a SQL Server T-SQL query to a Hadoop Distributed File System. How can I do this? How can I validate the data was loaded correctly?
In this tip I will present a simple, yet comprehensive example of workload processing that was optimized using SQL Server In-Memory OLTP which led to a performance boost up to 79x times faster processing over disk-based execution.
On June 5, 2006 MSSQLTips.com started with just one tip in an effort to offer solutions to real world SQL Server problems. Ten years later, as we look back, we never expected MSSQLTips.com to grow into a global community of millions of SQL Server Professi
Microsoft has recently released SQL server 2014 SP2 in which a new DBCC command - DBCC CLONEDATABASE is introduced. I found this command very useful and interesting too. In this tip we will explore the functionality of DBCC CLONEDATABASE.
This tip will explain the differences between the following COUNT function varieties: COUNT(*) vs. COUNT(1) vs. COUNT(column_name) to determine if there is a performance difference.
Along with the new sample databases for SQL Server 2016, Microsoft also introduced new tools to mimic sample workloads to further explore the functionality. In this tip we will explore these sample workload tools.
You are about to deploy a critical change in your application databases. The code is enclosed in a transaction, but even when the code commits successfully there may be an issue which will require you to restore the database to the point before the change
