(Roger Jennings) Combining hierarchical XML content and relational columns in database tables is akin to mixing oil and water—the two data structures are unnatural partners. The original approach was to store XML documents as character large objects (CLOBs), which requires adding columns containing

(Willis Johnson) SQL Server 2005 supports symmetric encryption of data with these new built-in functions: – EncryptByKey – DecryptByKey – EncryptByPassPhrase – DecryptByPassPhrase – Key_ID – Key_GUID

(Douglas Reilly) Backing up SQL Server data is like many of the things we do because we figure we need to. It is good for you, like eating a good diet and getting exercise. Unfortunately, folks are often about as successful with SQL Server backups as they are with diet and exercise.

(Andrew Zanevsky, Chad Littlewood, Michael Hayes, Raied Idan, and Bill Nicholson) The value of data captured by traces increases significantly if you run traces on a regular basis and preserve all results for historical trend analysis. But storage space quickly becomes a constraint. Our main pro

Consider the following scenario. In Microsoft SQL Server 2000, char and varchar data types are combined in a UNION operation. If the UNION operation is included in a view or in a subquery, the return data type of the combined column is char. If the UNION operation is a stand-alone query, the return

(Gregory A. Larsen) In my article last month, I wrote about different methods you could use to identify the state of a SQL Server Agent job. One of the methods I discussed was using the undocumented extended stored procedure (XP) “xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs.” In this article, I will show you how to u

(Nguyen Thanh Phuong) In this presentation, I would like to show you how to create SQL Server Database using C#. Actually I had to deal with the problem when programming for our own specific DBMS.

(Larry Chesnut) I had a question come to me the other day. Can you add a node (from the SQL Server Point of View) to a cluster after it is already set up? Or put another way, if I add another node to the Windows cluster, how can a virtualized SQL Server be made able to use the newly added […]

(Serdar Yegulalp) Along with the upcoming release of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft is introducing a new edition of SQL Server called SQL Server Express. (R)

(Arthur Fuller) When a client asked a developer to construct a data values dictionary, the client was actually referring to a list of the distinct values in various columns and tables. Check out the basic SQL that was developed to fulfill this client’s request.