Are You a Project or Development Manager? If you’re working in the capacity of managing projects – whether they’re development or database or… whatever type of IT project you may be involved with, there are a few suggestions and ideas to consider as you go along. First, as mentioned yesterday, (read more here) begin with the end (user) in mind. […]

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Manager is one of the most published secrets I have finally come across. This is one of the most useful tools I have found in a long time, and it has been available for years. Perhaps you have already found it; but I have introduced it to a few people already the last couple of weeks […]

Bottom up database development can save a lot of time and resources compared to a Top Down scrub process. Let me explain what I mean because you are probably asking yourself what I’m talking about. By bottom up database development I mean that change begins in a development environment, and is pushed up to other environments in a re-producible manner. […]

For Developers: 2 Things to Consider with SQL Server The next time you find yourself involved in the design and early phases of creation of an application that works against SQL Server, you’ll make things easier for yourself with a couple of items addressed as early on as possible. – Data Types – I’ve seen more and more examples of […]

Recently I have been digging into an open systems tool for managing database changes. The tool is called Fluent Migrator. It brings a lot of flexibility that may be of use to you in different scenarios. Fluent Migrator operates against many different data engines both SQL and NoSql. Because it uses a fluent syntax, it allows you to execute the […]

How Does Data Protection Figure in to Your Plans? I have increasingly been talking with people about data protection only to find out that data protection (encrytion, thinking about the flow of information and protecting it along the way, etc.) is often an after-thought. It seems like many people put encryption in place at the database (TDE) or use cloud […]

I’ wondering if the SQL Server engine plateaued? From SQL Server 4.21, the first version I started using on the Windows platform, up to SQL Server 2005, each release had significant enhancements in the data engine. My perception is that the data engine has been relegated to a lower priority since SQL Server 2005. Enhancements to the data engine have […]

Here are a couple tips for optimizing your use of the SQL Server Management Studio editor. I was prompted for this editorial by reading an article in SQL Server Magazine called, “Using the Alt Key for Editing” by Michael K. Campbell. In his article he demonstrated how you can select a column inside the SQL editor, and that any typing […]

In SQL Server, data is stored in a B-Tree structure. If you are not familiar with a B-Tree you may want to take a look at Wikipedia for more details. As you can see in the example of the image below (Copied from the Wikipedia entry referenced above), not every node is completely filled in with values. The less dense […]

Today I wanted to talk about writing queries so that they are maintainable in the long run. There are two things that I don’t like to see when looking at a select statement. The first thing you have heard and read over and over, don’t use SELECT *. When you do, * is a variable that has to be resolved […]