Suppose you are designing an SQL Server database application for a company’s CEO and you have to display the fifth most highly paid employee in the company.
What would you do? Read More
Category: SQL Server
Automating the Tabular Model Processing of Analysis Services (SSAS) Databases in SQL Server
This article talks about automating the processing of the Analysis Services database in SQL Server. Automation is one of the most important tasks managed by database administrators or DevOps engineers.
Additionally, we’ll get an overview of Analysis Services databases and how they differ from SQL Server databases.
This article also highlights the importance of automating tasks in SQL Server to minimize the errors and maximize the productivity, particularly while working with complex scenarios like data warehouse business intelligence solutions. Read More
Installing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance – Part 1
In this article, I am going to explain the process of installing SQL Server on failover cluster instance (FCI) on the primary node. First, let’s look at the prerequisites.
Virtual Machine details:
Automate Database Test Restore in SQL Server
This article talks about automating the database restoration process which is often done manually by the DBA or the infrastructure team responsible for the management of database server(s) and database(s).
This article also highlights the importance of automating database administration tasks such as database backup and restoration to ensure that consistency and reliability of production database(s) are intact.
Additionally, there will be some tips about how to plan and implement database restoration task automation in a real-life scenario. Read More
T-SQL Regular Expressions: SUBSTRING, PATINDEX and CHARINDEX
In my previous article about T-SQL regular expressions, I have explained the LIKE operator, its usage and provided several examples with it. In this article, we are going to discuss the SUBSTRING, PATINDEX, and CHARINDEX functions of T-SQL. These functions can be used to perform pattern matching. Read More
Basics of SQL Server Task Automation
This is an introductory article about automation in SQL server primarily focused on the basic concepts. We will discuss some standard practices and a few examples to help beginners get started with SQL server automation.
This article also highlights the importance of automating SQL server tasks to save time and effort required to do these tasks manually.
Additionally, we will look at cases in which it is not a good idea to automate SQL server tasks despite the fact that automation saves time and effort. Read More
Transact-SQL: Working With Strings
Microsoft SQL Server has many built-in functions that can be used to format the output and represents it in the desired format.
In this article, the following built-in string functions supported in Transact SQL will be discussed with examples provided:
Create Indexed Views in SQL Server
Introduction
You would have already heard about views in databases. We create views for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons for using views is simplicity. Instead of writing complex queries again and again, you can just write a reusable view which fetches data from the underlying base tables. Another important reason for using views is security. If you don’t want to grant user privileges to the entire table, you can create a view instead which simplifies the process by letting you grant access directly to this view instead of the table. That said, views have certain limitations. The queries used in views have to fetch data from the underlying base tables which is not optimal when dealing with a huge number of rows. There is a strong likelihood of unnecessary I\O which would lead to poor database performance. Read More
How to Update SQL Server Statistics for Big Tables
In my previous article, I have briefly covered database statistics, its importance, and why statistics should be updated. Moreover, I have demonstrated a step by step process to create a SQL Server maintenance plan to update statistics. In this article, the following issues will be explained: 1. How to update statistics using T-SQL Command. 2. How to identify the frequently updated tables using T-SQL and also how to update the statistics of tables with frequently inserted/ updated / deleted data . Read More
Report Builder Basics for Power Users and IT Professionals
This is an introductory article about the Microsoft Report Builder tool which is used to build and manage paginated reports.
Additionally, you are going to learn how to create SSRS reports by using the report builder tool.
This article also highlights the importance of using standalone report authoring tools for quick management of reports as compared to full-fledged SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) for designing, developing, testing, and deploying SSRS reports. Read More