Before using Data Transformation Services (DTS) to convert or transform data between heterogeneous data and destinations, consider these variations in the way different programs, providers, and drivers support data types and SQL statements.

(Hilary Cotter) It’s not uncommon for IT shops to find their SQL Server installations growing exponentially: Non- IT departments may install their own SQL Servers; shrink-wrap installations often require dedicated servers; and then there’s always the small Microsoft Access application that grows to

Microsoft ActiveX scripts can be used to add functionality to Data Transformation Services (DTS) packages. Typical supported scripts are Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), Microsoft JScript, PerlScript and XMLScript.

(Raymond Lewallen) SQL Server 2005 provides a new exception-handling mechanism in the form of TRY…CATCH. In current version of Sql Server you have to include GOTO statements, and check @@ERROR after every statement is executed to determine if an error had occurred at that particular point and term

(Gregory A. Larsen) If you need to make small changes to an existing database object, then you will need to do some impact assessment to determine what SQL Server Objects will be affected by your small change. So how do you identify those database objects that will be affected by a scheme change? Is

(Hilary Cotter) As a SQL Server DBA, you most likely have to support a range of SQL Server versions, from SQL Server 7.0 to 2005. While it may be rare to come across version 6.5 still in production, I discover it at client sites more frequently than I am willing to admit. So how can you work effecti

(Steven Warren) In this series of articles, you will learn the basics of installing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 as well as how to use MOM to monitor SQL Server. This article takes advantage of virtualization. We will use VMware Workstation 5 to create the lab to introduce you to the basics of

Consider the following scenario. You are running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000. You run the sp_helpfile stored procedure on a data file or on a log file. In this scenario, you may receive the following error message: Msg 8115, Level 16, State 2, Procedure sp_helpfile, Lin

Seven new webcasts are scheduled for January, covering such topics as Common Language Runtime Integration, Security Considerations When Upgrading to SQL Server 2005, How Microsoft IT Runs SAP on SQL Server 2005 and more.

(Marcin Policht) Continuing the coverage of debugging features in SQL Server 2005 Integration Services Data Flow, which we started in the previous installment of this series, we will now focus on the Script Component. As we have already pointed out, some of the methods presented when discussing this