Gregory Larsen

When you write TSQL code what kind of coding style do you use?  Do you have a consistent way to comment and format your code?  Does your organization provide standards for how you must code your TSQL?  Even if you replied NO to all these questions you probably have a style you use when you […]

For years SQL Server has supported the IDENTITY property for automatically generating a unique number that is incremented from one value to another based on an increment value.  With the introduction of SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a new method to generate a sequence number, using a Sequence Object.  This new object can be used […]

As I get older it seems like time marches on faster and faster. But in reality the passing of time is a constant. Maybe it is because I am get older and I have more memories of dates and times of the past that makes it seem like time passes faster. About now you are […]

As a DBA one of the most important tasks you might be asked to do is to restore an application database.   When a database becomes corrupted for some reason you need to be able to restore the data to the last know point in time when the database was in a consistent state.  In order […]

In my prior article (Introduction to the SQL Server Data Profiler Task – Part 1) I introduced you to the SSIS Data Profiling Task. In that article I give you a quick tour of how use the Data Profiling task.  In this article I will explore using a few of the different Data Profiling profiles […]

If you need to analyze data in a SQL Server table one of the tasks you might want to consider is profiling your data.  By profiling the data, I mean looking for data patterns, like the number of different distinct values for each column, or the number of rows associated with each of those distinct […]

In my last article I showed you how to install the database engine for SQL Server 2012.  One of the new SQL Server 2012 component’s that is part of the database engine that I didn’t install was Data Quality Services. (DQS)  In this article I will be showing you how to install Data Quality Services […]

SQL Server 2012 has been out for a while.  Since its release Microsoft has already released a number of Community Updates (CUs).  In order to help you evaluate how you are going to install SQL Server 2102, I will be showing how to install a stand-alone instance of the Database Engine. You should think of […]

If you are like most, you probable do not install the newest version of SQL Server as soon as the bits are released by Microsoft.  Instead you wait for a one or more Community Updates (CUs) or the first Server Pack (SP) to be released.   Why would anyone want to be on the bleeding edge […]

Have you ever wondered what records are being inserted, updated and deleted in one or more SQL Server tables? When SQL Server 2008 was released the Microsoft product group came out with a new feature called “Change Data Capture”. You can use change data capture to track the changes that occur to a table. In […]

If you are running an instance of SQL Server 2005 and above then most likely that instance is running the default trace.  This default trace is a canned Profiler server side trace that automatically starts up when SQL Server starts.  In this article I will explain more about the default trace and show you how […]

When you are inserting, updating, or deleting records from a table, SQL Server keeps track of the records that are changed in two different pseudo tables: INSERTED, and DELETED.  These tables are normally used in DML triggers.  If you use the OUTPUT clause on an INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE or MERGE statement you can expose the […]