(Erin Stellato) A common element used in database design is the constraint. Constraints come in a variety of flavors (e.g. default, unique) and enforce the integrity of the column(s) on which they exist. When implemented well, constraints are a powerful component in the design of a database because

(Brian P ODwyer) We have gone to almost all virtualized SQL Servers and as a result finding accurate information on the underlying hardware that the virtualized servers are running on can be difficult. We may also desire to know more about the VMWare configuration and how it affects our SQL Servers.

(Ed Elliott) MergeUi is a addin (VSPackage) for Visual Studio / Sql Server Data Tools projects. It is a ui to create and edit T-Sql merge statements in pre and post deployment scripts.

(Melissa Coates) Welcome to part 2 of a 3-part series on using the SSAS Connector with the new Power BI Preview. This information is as of early March 2015 and is subject to change as the Power BI Preview evolves.

(Pinal Dave) Long time ago, I have written a blog which talks about multi language support available with SQL Server.

(Larry Leonard) Everyone seems to have their own version. Mine is as simple as I could make it. Make sure you create the LOGIN first, and set the @User variable in the code below.

(James Serra) I see a lot of confusion on what exactly is an Operational Data Store (ODS). While it can mean different things to different people, I’ll explain what I see as the most common definition. First let me mention that an ODS is not a data warehouse or data mart.

(Arshad Ali) There are different techniques to optimize the performance of SQL Server queries, such as keeping required and updated statistics, creating required indexes, partitioning table, etc., but wouldn’t it be great if had some recommendations before we started planning or optimizing queries s

(Fabiano Amorim) It is always bad news if your SQL queries are having to use the SORT operator. It is worse news if you get a warning that sort operations are spilling onto TempDB. If you have a busy, slow TempDB, then the effect on performance can be awful. You should check your query plans to try

(Pinal Dave) So tell me if this is a fantasy or a reality: You are on a beach, sipping on your cocktail and looking at the sea when you get a frantic call from your boss, “One of the junior DBAs has just deleted all of the data from a critical database”.