SQL Server Articles

As much as we try and prevent it, duplicate data still finds its way into corporate data systems, but the good news is that purging duplicate rows can be a relatively simple task. Prevention, through the use of good match code algorithms and constraints, will stop most duplicate data from entering your databases, but there [...]

A useful device in Ethernet networking is the cross-over cable. There are circumstances where it is necessary to network two computers together and nothing else. Examples include test environments and clustered systems. In such cases, it is desired to avoid the need for a dedicated network switch. On Ethernet and Fast Ethernet networks, this is [...]

Return to Previous Article in the Series Performance Audit Checklist Database Configuration Settings Default Value Current Value auto_close off auto_create_statistics on auto_update_statistics on auto_shrink off read_only off torn_page_detection on in 2000off in 7.0 compatibility level 80 for 200070 for 7.0 database auto grow on transaction log auto grow on Enter your results in the table [...]

Return to Previous Article in the Series  Performance Audit Checklist SQL ServerConfiguration Settings AdvancedSetting? RequiresRestart? Default Value Current Value affinity mask  Yes Yes 0 awe enabled  Yes Yes 0 cost threshold for parallelism  Yes No 5 cursor threshold  Yes No -1 fill factor (%)  Yes Yes 0 index create memory (KB)  Yes No 0 lightweight pooling [...]

Return to Previous Article in the Series Performance Audit Checklist  SQL Server Hardware Characteristics Describe Here  Number of CPUs  CPU MHz  CPU L2 Cache Size  Physical RAM Amount  Total Amount of Available Drive Space on Server  Total Number of Physical Drives in Each Array  RAID Level of Array Used for SQL Server Databases  Hardware vs. [...]

As you have worked with SQL Server, you probably have run across the terms data cache and procedure cache, and may have wondered what exactly a cache was. SQL Server is configured to use a physical pool of memory on the server, and it will allocate the majority of this memory pool to hold data [...]

There are lot of situations where you need an exact timestamp. For example, you may want to differentiate a recordsets’ creation dates, store technical measurements, or just to see how fast your latest SQL is running. Coding the 4th dimension is another common task, and therefore milliseconds are essential. But there is a problem receiving [...]

Intended Audience This article is intended to provide software developers and IT administrators a basis for comparing server systems. The focus is on platforms for Intel processors and Windows NT, 2000 Server operating systems. Server system architectures can change substantially in 2-4 years, so it is important to understand the new capabilities introduced in each [...]

View A view is a virtual table that consists of columns from one or more tables. Though it is similar to a table, it is stored in the database. It is a query stored as an object. Hence, a view is an object that derives its data from one or more tables. These tables are [...]

One of the best features of SQL Server 2000 is its user-defined functions (UDFs). UDFs offer many of the benefits of both views and stored procedures, and more. Unlike views, UDFs can take zero or more input parameters and return a scalar value, or can even return a table. Unlike stored procedures, the output of [...]