(Zach Nichter) Recently, I was asked my opinion on a database design schema our company developers were working on. When I heard they were using GUID’s (Global Unique Identifier) as PK’s (primary keys), my jaw about dropped.

(Hilary Cotter) If a hacker sets sights on your SQL Server, there are four primary methods he can use to take control and carry out unauthorized, malicious activity. I will look at each method in the following tip. (R)

(Michael Balloni) Relational databases like Microsoft’s SQL Server use locks to prevent multiple users from making conflicting modifications to a set of data: when a set of data is locked by a user, no other users can modify that same set of data until the first user finishes modifying the data and

(Sahil Malik) My previous article demonstrated how to write a simple table valued function (TVF) that accepts an integer and returns a table of results, breaking down the input of value into its factors. Thus, if you pass in 2, you get 1 and 2, but if you pass in 15, you get 1, 3, 5, and 15.

(Serdar Yegulalp) When formatted data passes from an application to a database, it is typically cleansed of redundant delimiters. The delimiters never change and they are only needed for human comprehension, so you can often do away with them when storing a particular piece of data on the backen

(Muthusamy Anantha Kumar) Usually SQL Server database administrators use the feature “Auto Growth” in the database configuration, in order allows automatic file growth when the database tries to expand. Though it is a good feature, sometimes SQL Server runs out of hard disk space. This article illus

(Arthur Fuller) Like thousands of developers, I eagerly downloaded SQL Server 2005 Express Edition mere moments after receiving an e-mail from Microsoft. Unfortunately, after installing it on my development box, I realized that I had a mess on my hands. Hopefully, by sharing my experience with S

(James Crowley) Trees can be an intuitively simply way of organising large amounts of information. We’re exposed to them everywhere – from directories in file systems and categories in a web directory to hierarchies in organisations and family trees! Something like XML handles hierarchical data well

Consider the following scenario: • You enable the 1204 trace flag in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to identify SQL Server deadlock events. • A deadlock event occurs, and a deadlock graph is automatically written to the SQL Server error log.

(William Pearson) In this article, we will: –Discuss example business needs within the OLAP reporting environment of a hypothetical client; –Discuss the use of relational picklist support as a possible solution for the expressed business needs, highlighting advantages in this approach;