Review: Data Compare v3.01
Andy reviewed v1.51 almost two years ago, this week he looks at the latest release that includes one feature he really wanted - the ability to compare and sync text columns.
2003-09-12
8,551 reads
Andy Warren
Testing for an Updated Column in a Trigger
The columns_updated function gives you the ability to easily test to see if specific columns were modified with less code than you might otherwise need to use. In this article Andy Warren demonstrates how to create a trigger that uses this function and points out some reasons why you may NOT want to use it!
2003-08-21
18,239 reads
Altering Replicated Tables (SQL 2000)
Changing a replicated table in SQL 7 was a lot of work. SQL 2000 offers some help, but in many cases it's not enough. This article by Andy Warren shows you which changes SQL 2000 will help you with and which ones it won't.
2003-08-08
14,402 reads
Review of Murachs SQL for SQL Server
Andy rates this one 4.5 out of 5 stars and likes it enough to recommend it's use at work. This is a book that should teach a developer how to use the key abilities of SQL. If you're looking for a book to guide your beginning/intermediate developers, this might be it.
2003-08-06
3,614 reads
Worst Practice - Bad Connection Strings and Bad Info in Sysprocesses
Andy returns to the Worst Practice series this week with a short article looking at how connection strings in applications affect what you see in sysprocesses. Perhaps less controversial (in our opinion) that some of the other worst practices, this is something easy to fix and definitely worth fixing! Read the article and post a comment - explore other points of view! Readers posting a comment will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit.
2003-08-01
15,787 reads
Lots of Tables and a Little DMO
Andy discusses a recent thread where a reader has very slow login tables with 2000 tables. After writing some DMO code (very handy by the way) and creating some objects, he can't track it down. Have any ideas?
2003-07-30
7,114 reads
The Best of SQLServerCentral.com 2002 - Follow Up
Hopefully you've heard by now that we're publishing a book consisting of our best content from 2002. Sign up for the book is going well, but we could still use a few more. This update answers some of the questions we've received so far.
2003-07-14
4,206 reads
SQL Agent Problem
Andy takes us through a recent troubleshooting session that includes a call to PSS. Ever run agent from the command line? Have a good idea of what justifies a call to PSS? Read this to learn more.
2003-07-09
10,911 reads
The Best of SQLServerCentral.com 2002 - We Did It!
The book is almost here! We've been working on it for months, now you can find out what it's going to look like, who the authors are, and how much it costs. It's been a lot of work but we think it's been worth it. Read the article to see how to save $3 off an already low price.
2003-07-07
6,074 reads
Managing Jobs - Part 4
Andy has been busy lately on a project you'll be hearing more about soon (!), but he did manage to get part four of his managing jobs series done. This article discusses ideas for patterns to follow when building jobs, including writing to the console, setting errorlevels, and how to get them installed on the server. DBA's, if you're not developers, look at this article - this is stuff you can take to your development team and get better/more manageable jobs.
2003-06-25
8,009 reads
Blogs
Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency
By HeyMo0sh
As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...
March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates
By Brian Kelley
On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...
How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025
When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...
Forums
Multiple Deployment Processes
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Upgrading Admin Queries
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Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
See possible answers