(Man Xiong and Sunil Agarwal) Incremental bulk load refers to loading data into a nonempty table. The key question during incremental bulk load is whether indexes should be dropped before bulk load. The answer depends on multiple factors. This paper attempts to answer this question through a cas

(Adam Machanic) Running SQL Server on a 64-bit platform has been an option to improve database performance and scalability for quite some time, but your configuration options were limited and not without problems. For one thing, SQL Server 2000 could only run on the expensive Itanium line of pro

Consider the following scenario. You are running Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 2 (SP2), or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer. You try to start the SQL Server service. In this scena

Consider the following scenario. In Microsoft SQL Server 2000, you try to update a table by running an UPDATE statement. The UPDATE statement joins three tables by using two JOIN hints. In this scenario, you receive the following error message: Server: Msg 8624, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Intern

(Arthur Fuller) Even though SQL wasn’t designed for calculating statistics, it does include a number of basic statistical functions. In this article, I’ll define statistical terms and functions and then demonstrate how you can benefit from using SQL’s built-in statistical functions.

If you are considering Microsoft replication capabilities you need to understand how these capabilities compare to DataXtend RE. This white paper discusses the differences in SQL Server and DataXtend RE replication capabilities across several areas and also reviews the challenges of supporting multi

(Ravindra Okade) Database Snapshot (DB Snapshot for short) is a new tool offered by SQL Server 2005. Database snapshots can be used to protect against user errors, by creating a “snapshot” of your data that you can refer to later if you need to recover data or database objects that were accidentally

(Marcin Policht) Continuing the topic of the Script Component in SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, to which we have dedicated our previous two articles (covering its debugging capabilities and its role as a Data Flow Source), we will now take a closer look its usefulness as a Data Flow Transform

(Jeremy Kadlec) Trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack of your SQL Server transactions is no small task. SQL Server Profiler not only helps you find that needle, it gives you details on all the other needles in a single interface. Profiler is truly the best native SQL Server resource t

Consider the following scenario. You try to filter non-Unicode data columns for records from a table in Microsoft SQL Server 2000. You use the NOT LIKE clause in a Transact-SQL query statement. You use the “%” wildcard character in the search pattern. In this scenario, SQL Server incorrectly returns