(Steve Jones) I recently saw someone ask a question about how to proper case a field of data. I thought this would be a simple update statement, but when I actually tried it, I realized there was a bit more work involved. In the instance that I saw, the person wanted to handle a field that conta

(John Theron) As we develop SQL Server applications with more and more concurrent users, there is inevitable contention as users compete for data resources. They are either forced to wait for each other or face the risk of reading inconsistent data due to in-progress changes. This trade-off bet

(Baya Pavliashvili) This article shows you how to check replication functionality and how to troubleshoot errors. As you might imagine, it is impossible to predict every error that you might encounter. Instead, I will show you how to detect errors and where to look for clues to troubleshoot repl

(William Pearson) In this lesson, we will introduce a function that assists us in the handling of empty cells. In multidimensional data sets, we are often confronted with empty cells – data is often sparse in these sets by their very physical nature. Because, as a simple example, every product might

(Eli Leiba) There are times when passing parameters does not work. For example: when dealing with DTS packages or in cases when an external (non-SQL Server) platform activates a process inside a SQL Server environment. (R)

This step-by-step article demonstrates how to install a certificate on a computer that is running SQL Server 2000 by using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and describes how to enable SSL Encryption at the server, or for specific clients.

sp_smtp_sendmail is a wrapper stored procedure for xp_smtp_sendmail. This makes it easier to be used from environments like SQL Server DTS (SQL Task) which try to retrieve the parameter list of a procedure.

(Steve Jones) This is the second part in the Beginners series and a short one since I’m a little buried. However, it’s a common topic that I think many of you will run into. It’s something I’ve been asked more than a few times and answered questions for, but something that most people new to SQL Ser

(Bob Beauchemin, Niels Berglund, and Dan Sullivan) SQL Server Service Broker(SSB) is a new part of the database engine that is used to build reliable, asynchronous, message-based distributed database applications. Service Broker allows these applications to concentrate their development efforts on t

(DotnetFreak) This article will explain about the basics of SQL joins.