SQL Server Magazine

Plugging the Gaps in SQL Server Job Tracking

Find missing SQL Server jobs and scheduling conflicts by using two scripts that supplement SQL Server Agent job tracking.

Desperately Seeking Samples

Educate yourself on the design and operation concepts for databases and data warehouses by taking advantage of Microsoft’s sample databases. Although the business scenarios are fictitious, they translate to real-world uses.

T-SQL 101: Views

The virtual nature of a view is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Here's what you need to know to create views and use them wisely.

Indexed Views vs. Regular Views

Learn how indexed views differ from regular views.

Where in the World Are Pubs and Northwind?

Digging into SSMS

Explore some lesser-known SQL Server Management Studio features that can help you better manage queries, organize scripts and other task resources, and report database and server statistics.

Introducing Excel Services for SharePoint

Among the most useful changes to Microsoft Excel 2007 is Excel Services, which lets businesses share spreadsheets across the enterprise by moving the heavy lifting and security off the local desktop and into a server environment.

SQL Server Profiler or Server-Side Trace?

Did you know that using SQL Server Profiler can have an impact on the performance of your production servers? Check out these test results comparing SQL Server Profiler with a server-side trace.

T-SQL 101, Lesson 6

Creating a table "the old fashioned way" leads to a better understanding of the table and its columns. Plus, the resulting T-SQL code documents the table's structure and lets you easily recreate the table.

Visual Studio .NEXT Wish List

Love Visual Studio 2008? Hardly. The author points out where Microsoft needs to fix VS 2008's shortcomings such as the inability to access the new SQL Server data types of ADO.NET features.

Server 2008 Data Profiling

Learn how to use SQL Server 2008's Data Profiling task and Data Profile Viewer to examine and assess your data.

T-SQL 101, Lesson 5

Understand the differences between inner, outer, and cross joins before you use them in your queries.

Generate a Clickthrough Report using Visual Studio ReportViewer

See how you can set up a clickthrough report without using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

Who Can Do Backups?

CLR UDT Caveats

CLR UDTs aren't intended to turn SQL Server into a full-blown object-oriented database. Learn about the proper place of CLR UDTs and methods for overcoming common objections to using them.

Using Large CLR UDTs in SQL Server 2008

See how the VarBinaryComp UDT takes advantage of new support for large types to store,compress, and decompress up to 2GB of binary data.

Backup and Restore Fundamentals

Back up your SQL Server databases regularly to prevent lost data in the event of a disaster.

Security Logging with Service Broker

Create the message types, contracts, queues, and services for an event-logging solution, and use some simple ASP code to call a SQL Server stored procedure that places information in a security logging queue for automated processing.

T-SQL 101, Lesson 4

Thanks to the GROUP BY clause, you can write SELECT queries that produce detailed reports.

Sharpen Your Basic SQL Server Skills

Discover the difference between Windows Authentication Mode and Mixed Mode, and learn the names and uses of installed system databases.