Book by Neil Pike – This book will help the professional programmer get up to speed on a key Microsoft technology. This book consists of nearly 500 common and not-so-common questions and problems that users of all versions of SQL Server are likely to come across. The solutions to these problems are

by Brad M. McGehee – If you have been keeping up with the new articles and reviews on my website, you might have run across a review I recently wrote called, How SQL Compare Makes You a More Productive DBA. This was a product review of Red-Gate Software’s SQL Compare software, which is used to compa

Restores SQL Server using point-and-click maneuvers. The complete history of database and transaction log dumps is captured as a series of icons. Gives DBA the option of immediately launching the restore to recover SQL Server to a specific point in time or to save the parameters for later execution.

Book by Fernando G. Guerrero & Carlos Eduardo Rojas – When I first started learning Transact-SQL, there were few books to choose from. Today, you have many choices, including this new book from Que. Like most books that cover Transact-SQL, this book is introductory in nature and is designed for read

You might find it necessary to increase the max async I/O parameter if you implement a drive array on your SQL server. This parameter determines the maximum number of reads and writes your server can perform simultaneously. By default, SQL Server configures your server’s max async I/O parameter at 3

Book by Thearon Willis – Traditionally, many VB developers have used Microsoft Access as their database engine. While Microsoft Access is OK for smaller, individual or group-based applications, it just doesn't have the "right stuff" for enterprise-based applications. For the really big j

For those fortunate enough to have SQL 2000, using global variables with an Execute SQL Task, or as part of the source statement in the DataPump task is now a standard feature. For those still using SQL Server 7.0 this tedious process, but here are some examples of how it can be done. Even if you ar

WinSQL is a utility that uses ODBC to connect to different databases. You can connect to multiple data source at the same time. It also displays the database catalog information including table name, field name, stored procedures and their parameters. Moreover, it uses a multi-threaded architecture

by Brad M. McGehee – If you are like most DBAs, you probably find yourself managing multiple versions of the same database. This process can sometimes become very frustrating as you try to ensure that each database’s objects are synchronized with each other. If you or others don’t keep good records

By Kalen Delaney – In "More Fill-Factor Mysteries," May 2001, I demonstrated that SQL Server performs a page split when it needs to insert a row on a full page. To determine whether a split occurred, I examined the output from the DBCC IND command, which shows how many pages are in a table.