I thought it was interesting that for the update test, the MERGE seemed to perform somewhat fewer reads and dramatically fewer writes. Even though the difference in elapsed time wasn't...

One reason some managers operate on gut feel vs. data is that is many cases, you don't really have the data you need.

Case #1: Not really understanding your metrics

A call...

I adjust file locations, growth, and starting size. On development servers, I change the recovery model to SIMPLE. I also add a series of objects to model, mostly database-specific metadata...

Where I work, we're not only interested in who changes data, we need to know who looks at it too.

We try to monitor access by using stored procs as...

Ah, you are correct, Tony.

There is an Options box that lets you get to where you can select a database.

The selection field is a combo box; clicking it to select...

About the tip "Never leave the default database set to the master database."...

I get where you are coming from; accidentally executing something in master is not fun.

BUT also know this:...

A common pattern is when you want to pull the latest Exchange_Rates from the table.

Before the windowed ranking functions, this was not much fun to write.

This T-SQL will give you...

I've always liked an "interface" approach, using stored procedures.

If a developer needs to access customer information, you give them a "GetCustomer" stored procedure.

This insulates them from the schema...

The most likely reason is no login named "Kumar" exists, so the [sp_change_users_login] proc can't successfully un-orphan the user.

See if you have a login named 'kumar'. If not, create one...

From a security standpoint, this is a very real concern!

It's happening right now - remember the digital picture frames from China with malware pre-installed? It's not just government-based, either...

On the subject of parameter sniffing, here's a good article that describes how that works (and best of all, how it can go wrong!)

http://www.sqlpointers.com/2006/11/parameter-sniffing-stored-procedures.html

I've run across this problem several times as well.

I try copying the parameters into local variables, then use the local variables in the WHERE clause.

That almost always fixes the...

I know my biggest complaint about advertising is how it forces its way in front of me, generally at the worst possible time. I'd say more than half the time...

About the author's discussion of Option 5...

"Option 5 is am especially delicious failure in that it looks just like the sucessful option 3, only using ISNULL instead of COALESCE. It...