Amazon Extends Services for Microsoft Technologies
As someone who works primarily with Microsoft technologies I was delighted to see the Amazon announcement yesterday that they are going to offer two additional options for developers. First, Amazon RDS...
View ArticleAnnouncing New IT Training Courses: Make Better Use of Your Company’s Data
Curious about how you can enhance your AngularJS or SQL server skills? Or do you want to learn how to capitalize on data stored in Hadoop? Develop your IT skills and make more informed business...
View ArticleHow to Use CROSS APPLY with Derived Tables in Transact SQL Queries
Armelle G, a student in Learning Tree’s SQL Server Transact-SQL Programming course asks “Is CROSS APPLY only used with T-SQL Functions?” Great question Armelle! Many SQL Server folks would answer “yes”...
View ArticleAre Cursors in SQL Server Evil? Part One: How to Declare Cursors in Transact-SQL
Henry K., from Learning Tree’s class Developing High Performance SQL Server Databases, writes “My sysadmin said that cursors are evil, and I should never use them in my stored procedures. Is this...
View ArticleAre Cursors in SQL Server Evil? Part Two: How to Use Cursors in Transact-SQL
In the previous installment, we looked at the numerous options for declaring a cursor. All that remains is the easy part: fetching data from a cursor. To do this, we shall have to declare variables for...
View ArticleSQL Server 2014 New Features: Clustered Columnstore Index Features
Clustered Columnstore Indexes – Enforcing Uniqueness and Creating Nonclustered Indexes We have seen that once a table has been physically implemented as a clustered columnstore index, further indexes...
View ArticleGet Started Monitoring SQL Server Wait Stats
Amy P., a student in Learning Tree’s 535 Class, Developing High Performance SQL Server Databases, asks “There are so many waits and so many different wait types, I’m confused.” Well, actually, that’s a...
View ArticleQuerying SQL Server Data from Spark with Scala
Spark, as with virtually the entire Hadoop ecosystem, is built with Java, and of course Spark’s shell default programming language, Scala targets the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). For better or for...
View ArticleExploring SQL Server CPU Usage with Xperf
In previous blogs, we took a look at how to install Xperf, and how to use it to look at file I/O. For SQL Server administrators, a potentially important use of Xperf is to examine the consumption of...
View ArticleSQL Server Career: Gaining Experience
Learning Tree does not employ their instructors on a full time basis. Learning Tree instructors are brought in on an event by event basis to teach specific events in the technology or subject areas...
View ArticleWhich SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services Should I Choose?
Choices are always good; more selection means a greater chance of finding exactly what you want. In the world of analytical databases, however, it’s not always clear which choice best suits the needs...
View ArticleQuerying SQL Server Data from Matlab Using ADO
Matlab has a database toolbox, but there are several reasons why you might decide to take matters into your own hands and query SQL Server data using the ADO library. One simple reason might be that...
View ArticleExploring SQL Server File I/O with Xperf
Xperf is designed for hardcore Windows programmers and systems analysts, but it can also be an invaluable tool for SQL Server developers and admins who need to find very detailed answers as a part of...
View ArticleSave Time Writing T-SQL With Templates and Code Snippets
Time-savers are most important when you are busy – that seems obvious. The unfortunate irony is that when you are busy you cannot take the time to create them. The creation of time-savers drops to low...
View ArticleOracle Vs SQL Server: Are They So Different?
Before Christmas I was asked to compare SQL Server against Oracle. So I thought that would make a good SQL Server versus Oracle post. Although I have thought about this over years as I have worked with...
View ArticleHow to Use the OPENROWSET Function to Read Text Files
Fayed, a student in Learning Tree’s Introduction to SQL Server, asked how to import text files into SQL Server. Quite a difficult question, actually, because there are many different ways. The hardest...
View ArticleHow Much do SQL Server Data Professionals Make?
You’ve thought about your career, you can’t make up your mind about which direction you want to take it. You want to make an informed decision and work out if the career you chose will provide you with...
View ArticleOptimize Your SQL Server Queries with Column Statistics
Have you ever done something that your mother told you to never ever do? Well, we’re going to do that today, except with SQL Server. We’re going to get rid of SQL Server column statistics with the goal...
View ArticleDeveloper or DBA – Who makes the most?
My last newsletter was focussed on a salary survey that was taken back in January. You can see that post here. We’ll use the same data set in this post. In this post we will look at the data, try and...
View ArticleMissing Server Configuration Manager from SSRS Server
I had an interesting problem recently. I was doing some work for a client on a CRM deployment and a performance issue. Whilst onsite, I helped with a problem with SSRS and reports not displaying....
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