thanks guys. apologies for not closing off this thread.

Thanks Joshusha, that white paper is indeed very useful.

FYI, if installing sql 2012 components (SSRS, Powerpivot) the steps are a bit different

SSRS...

Thanks for the super quick reply Eddie, exactly what I needed to know!

Edit - removed answer after rereading the question.

No worries, I intended to, and stayed very general, much less detailed than other posts on this site about the exam, but I won't mention anything further on the exam.

Just to close this off, Karen Delaney and aron Bertrand help a lot in this post and comments.

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2008/06/29/why-i-still-need-sysprocesses.aspx

Yea I believe says processes is behind sp_whoisactive.

But my issue is that dm_exec_requeata, coupled with dm_exec_connections is supposed to be the new improved method for getting at the info the...

Update: I think idera must use the sysprocesses as it gives a lot of the data that im seeing.

I thought sys.dm_exec_requests was the updated version of sysprocesses and so should...

opc.three (3/3/2013)

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NULL variable-length columns are returned as NULL based on the metadata of the table (and the NULL-bitmap of the record) when the result set is constructed but occupy no...

Cool. Thanks for that.

I have done some tests since confirming that, so char and nchar show much better savings, and int's dependant on the size of the values show a...

DBA_bret (2/5/2013)

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This is xml data. You are attempting to do a string comparison by using LIKE, and it expects a text data type. Try looking at how to perform...

My ideal choice is simplification, but we have a client who asked we investigate a bit of an over complex solution and this is one issue that cropped up.

Thanks for...

issue resolved with a constraint on the date column. seems the engine is happy to do the swap if the constraint enforces only rows that can only go into the...

64bit os and SQL Server

Read this article, it should clear it up for you.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191429.aspx

GSquared (10/25/2012)

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So far as I know, Group By will require a sort, since it has to put the rows together to do whatever aggregation you're asking for. You might...