Today let’s complete the series reviewing the different join techniques found in SQL Server with the Loop Join. This techniques works well for smaller tables or smaller sets. The join is performed by walking through each record of the first table meeting the users critiera. For each row found it then seeks the joining records in the table to be […]

Merge Joins are another technique used by SQL Server to join tables with a large number of records. A merge join works effectively when the data from both tables is sorted in the same order. It takes the data from each table and works through both tables simultaneously, moving forward in either table when the value from the opposite table […]

SQL Server uses three different techniques when joining tables depending on the size of the table and the indexes available. When no good index exists on either table to implement an efficient join process, the query optimizer will often select a HASH Join. A hash join is performed by creating a hash value for the attributes used to join both […]

What do you do when you need to enforce referential integrity across databases on the same SQL Instance, or maybe on a different instance or server altogether? This kind of eventuality occurs often in data warehousing where sharding I used to increase performance, or sharded OLTP databases separated for performance, often seen in MySQL large scale implementations. Some implementations attempt […]

DRI (Declarative Referential Integrity) does a lot of busy work for you we used to have to do ourselves when it wasn’t available. At one time, referential integrity had to be manually coded through the use of triggers. You can still do this today if you have a need. In the trigger for a child table you would test for […]

Are you coding? You can ask me this just about any time and my answer will be, “Yes”. Even though I enjoy employing agile techniques for software development, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a strategy to solve a problem. It doesn’t me there isn’t an architectural process, or no cogitation, about how to solve different issues. It just […]

Recently I have been enjoying the flexible nature of RESTful services. Much like SOAP, REST allows applications to interact with flexible binding. The big difference is that it takes advantage of traditional HTTP verbs to perform CRUD actions (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) we are familiar with when communicating with database services. Also, similar to SOAP, data is communicated in a […]

Recently I read an article demonstrating how you can use SQL Server capabilities to translate HTML to SQL and back again. Web site contents could be pushed into SQL Server, parsed, and database manipulations exercised. In return, the database could take table contents and translate it back into HTML. I thought the whole thing was a cool exercise. I also […]

How do you bring value to your Employer? In most cases it is more than just putting in a full day work. Here are some observations I have found over the years applying to those in the IT profession. Always learning: It is a nice bonus when your employer allows you to attend conferences or sends you to training for […]

The Christmas holiday season we are currently celebrating here in the United States reminds me of a common problem many applications need to take into account. What are the days out of a calendar year that are considered a business day? How do you track them? How are they determined when non-business days must be taken into account for the […]