Reporting Services SP1 Released
A key service pack has now been released for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. This one adds key enhancements and fixes many bugs.
Unique Identifier: Usage and Limitations
The Unique Identifier datatype in SQL Server has tremendous potential to solve many of the issues one finds with Identity fields, other primary keys, etc. However it also has some drawbacks and limitations. Author Sharad Nandwani looks at some of the pros and cons of this datatype.
Save Yourself - Recovering from an XP Disaster
How many of you dig into Windows XP extensively? Working with hardware and the OS isn't something that many DBAs deal with these days. Most companies have an admin to work on servers, hardware, workstations, etc. But sometimes you need to help yourself out. Steve Jones had to work to get his laptop back after an XP disaster. Read on and hopefully this will help you one day recover your system.
Case Sensitivity in Selects - Part 2
In this follow up Andy looks into some of the options available when you're dealing with situations where you're joining a case sensitive column to a case insensitive column. We think after reading this you'll be ready to just say no!
Distributed Backup Checking
SQL Server backups are rock solid. But checking them is another matter and something that every DBA is responsible for doing. Another followup article by new Author Kevin O'Donovan to the issue of looking at which database
Port Blocking, SQL Server, and the Internet
The SQL Server ports 1433, was blocked recently by an ISP. New Author Denny Figuerres read our release and decided to bring you some comments about why this isn't such a bad idea. Read on and see if you agree that blocking the SQL Server ports shouldn't present you any problems.
Case Sensitivity in Selects - Part 3
See what a reader had to say about Part 1, make sure you've read Part 2, then feel the pain as the author describes a lookup table that should have had unique values and doesn't.
Lumigent Technologies Introduces Data Auditing Solution for Oracle
Entegra for SQL Server has been available for some time, but Lumigent has recently announced support for Oracle. So if you're in a heterogenous environment...
Extracting a String From Between Two Delimiting Characters
String manipulation in SQL Server or T-SQL can be a challenage. There are multiple ways to accomplish every task and often learning a new one may spark some creativity in yourself or teach you a better way to accomplish an old task. New Author Stephen Lasham brings us his technique for extracting a string that is delimited from within a larger string. Something I'm sure we'll all have use for in the future.
SQLCentric Pre Summer Sale!
SQLCentric is a fully functional Web-based MSSQL Centric Network Database Monitoring System which is deployed on your corporate intranet. Now for a limited time, Pearl Knowledge Solutions is running a sale on this product.
Blogs
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...
The DIY Cost of Masking Test Data For Smaller Organizations
By Steve Jones
One of the things I’ve tried hard to do in database development situations if...
Forums
XACT_ABORT being set to ON by web services
We have two "identical" instances of an ASP.NET web service (or so I have...
OPENQUERY Flexibility
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OPENQUERY Flexibility
A Full Shutdown
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Full Shutdown
Question of the Day
OPENQUERY Flexibility
Which of these are valid OPENQUERY() uses?
See possible answers