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• ISNULL() <> COALESCE(). Discuss.

  Crikey.  That title sounds like an essay I had to write when I was at school and that was a long time ago... Jamie Thomson raised an important point in a comment on a blog I posted yesterday entitled " Getting rid of getdate() ".  Read More... Posted 18 July 2008 10:30 by James.Rowland-Jones | 3 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, T-SQL

• Getting rid of Getdate()...

  Ok I admit - I use it. Pretty much everyone I know uses it and yet I feel dirty when I do.  Why? Well it's not portable SQL and most certainly not ANSI standard.  I need to get the datetime I hear you say.  How do I do this without getdate()?  Read More... Posted 17 July 2008 10:32 by James.Rowland-Jones | 3 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL, T-SQL

• SQL Server Database Recovery Model: How do you set yours?

  We had the classic situation come up on a project the other day.  The recovery models on the databases were set to full and yet the backup strategy didn't reflect this.  Needless to say, we ran out of disk space on our build server.  In Read More... Posted 15 July 2008 10:07 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, Database Administration

• Synchronous and Asynchronous Shopping

  A couple of days ago I was asked to explain the difference between synchronous and asynchronous I/O.  This was something that I covered last year at SQLBits II in my presentation " I/O! I/O! It's off to work we go... ". However, when I Read More... Posted 11 July 2008 10:06 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, SQLBITS, Community, I/O

• SQL Security Patch Build is CU6+ but not quite CU7

  So as suspected when I installed the new Security patch released by Microsoft for SQL 2005 sp2 that I mentioned this morning my build number has indeed shot up to 3233.  This places me somewhere between CU6 and CU7. Build 9.00.3228 was CU6 and 9.00.3239 Read More... Posted 10 July 2008 11:40 by James.Rowland-Jones | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, sp2, SQL Server, Security

• SQL Server and Windows Security patch posted

  And so the great run comes to an end... For the full details of this incident please click here . N.B. This also affects Windows. However this is released under a different KB article. For the SQL 2005 sp2 KB article look at this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948108 Read More... Posted 10 July 2008 09:33 by James.Rowland-Jones | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, sp2, SQL Server, Security

• Resources for Spatial Data in SQL Server 2008

  As you may be aware we recently hosted a meeting of the UK SQL Server User Group featuring Michael Rys . For those of you who weren't able to jot down the resources he mentioned in his presentation I have copied and pasted them in below. Thanks to Michael Read More... Posted 09 July 2008 09:14 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, Community, SQL Server 2008, UK SQL Server User Group, Spatial Data

• VISIO 2007 add-in for SQL Server Infrastructure Diagrams

  Here's a little freebie from Microsoft for those of you who have the job of drawing out infrastructure diagrams of SQL Server farms. Ok that already sounds like a pretty niche market.  How about here's a little freebie from Microsoft for those of Read More... Posted 09 July 2008 00:33 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, Database Administration

• Using a Bitmask - a practical example

  A colleague of mine asked for a simple example to get him up and running with the basics of bitmasking.  Since I had gone to the effort to create the example I thought I might as well blog it :o). This example uses the logical AND operator &. Read More... Posted 04 July 2008 23:28 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL, T-SQL

• SQLBits III Session Submissions Deadline Update

  In an earlier post I mentioned that the 4th July had been set as the deadline for submission of session abstracts.  This deadline has now been extended till July 11th as there are still a number of people who we are waiting to hear from.  For Read More... Posted 04 July 2008 21:40 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server, SQLBITS, Community, SQL Server 2008, UK SQL Server User Group

• Spatial Data Eye Candy

  In an earlier post I mentioned the new visualisation functionality for spatial data.  Michael Rys kindly pointed me in the direction of Isaac's blog that has some pictures of the new "Spatial Data" tab and resulting visualisation.  Read More... Posted 04 July 2008 09:40 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, Spatial Data

• SQLBits III Session submission is open

  Not a lot more to say about this other than... HURRY.  You only have till the 4th July to get those abstracts written and your sessions submitted. SQLBits is a really great community event and this one is going to be the biggest ever.  We are Read More... Posted 24 June 2008 09:44 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server, SQLBITS, Community, SQL Server 2008

• SQL2K5 Enterprise Edition Mini Feature 2 : Ramp up

  This one is a bit surprising. Assume you have a cold SQL Server which you have just re-booted.  The buffer cache is empty and lots of I/O requests are going to be physical. Boo! Hiss!  Down with physical I/O. Well help is at hand (if you are Read More... Posted 16 March 2008 20:41 by James.Rowland-Jones | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server, Database Administration, Enterprise Edition

• SQL2K5 Enterprise Edition Mini Feature 1 : -E Startup Option

  Are you using multiple files? Are you set up for proportional fill? Is it a warehouse?  Are you concerned about extent fragmentation? You should be.  Extent fragmentation upsets your lovely read-ahead and results in smaller I/O. Let me explain.  Read More... Posted 16 March 2008 20:38 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server, Database Administration, Enterprise Edition

• SQL2K5 Enterprise Edition Mini Features

  I thought it might be fun to do series of posts on features that are exclusive to enterprise edition but that aren't significant enough in their own right to make it on to the big ticket list .  Sometimes people balk at shelling out for SQL Server Read More... Posted 16 March 2008 20:37 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server, Database Administration, Enterprise Edition