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• How To Tell: If connections to SQL Server are pooled (or not)

  Have you ever wondered if the applications connecting to your SQL Servers are using pooled connections or not?  If the answer is yes then read on.  However, if the answer is no then you should! Opening and closing connections is an expensive Read More... Posted 25 July 2009 21:33 by James.Rowland-Jones | 4 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server 2008, Performance Tuning, New SQL Book, How It Works, SQL Server Internals

• Calculating the ROI of DRY SQL vs FLY SQL

  My colleague Jamie Thomson   posted an intriguing article on DRY SQL which you can read all about here . It raised a number of questions for me so I thought I’d post my own response to it. Here is a list of some of these questions that sprung to Read More... Posted 15 July 2009 16:53 by James.Rowland-Jones | 2 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, T-SQL, Performance Tuning

• Merge Replication : Resolving the Permissions Bitmask in Merge Security

  A couple of years ago I worked on an issue with my colleague Steve Wright about an issue with merge replication.  You can read Steve’s original post here .  However, in summary, the issue boiled down to a security check that merge replication Read More... Posted 05 June 2009 12:12 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, Database Development, SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, Replication, Bitmask

• ISNULL() <> COALESCE(). Discuss.

  Crikey.  That title sounds like an essay I had to write when I was at school and that was a long time ago... Jamie Thomson raised an important point in a comment on a blog I posted yesterday entitled " Getting rid of getdate() ".  Read More... Posted 18 July 2008 10:30 by James.Rowland-Jones | 4 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, T-SQL

• Here and Now()

  AAAaaaaah...Yesterday was just one of those days.  I was trying to do something very simple in a script task - assign the current datetime value to one of my variables - and was pulling my stubbly hair out trying to do it. I am happy to confess to Read More... Posted 17 July 2008 10:39 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SSIS, Database Development, .NET

• Getting rid of Getdate()...

  Ok I admit - I use it. Pretty much everyone I know uses it and yet I feel dirty when I do.  Why? Well it's not portable SQL and most certainly not ANSI standard.  I need to get the datetime I hear you say.  How do I do this without getdate()?  Read More... Posted 17 July 2008 10:32 by James.Rowland-Jones | 3 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL, T-SQL

• Using a Bitmask - a practical example

  A colleague of mine asked for a simple example to get him up and running with the basics of bitmasking.  Since I had gone to the effort to create the example I thought I might as well blog it :o). This example uses the logical AND operator &. Read More... Posted 04 July 2008 23:28 by James.Rowland-Jones | 4 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL, T-SQL

• Spatial Data Eye Candy

  In an earlier post I mentioned the new visualisation functionality for spatial data.  Michael Rys kindly pointed me in the direction of Isaac's blog that has some pictures of the new "Spatial Data" tab and resulting visualisation.  Read More... Posted 04 July 2008 09:40 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: Database Development, SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, Spatial Data

• T-SQL IDENTITY : Fun and Games with DBCC CHECKIDENT

  This issue caught me out today whilst putting together some build scripts for reference data. So I thought I’d share it. USE [tempdb] GO CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Table_1](       [Col1] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,       Read More... Posted 03 July 2008 18:26 by James.Rowland-Jones | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, Database Development, Team Edition for Database Professionals, Datadude, Database Edition, SQL, T-SQL

• DB Pro: New Database Unit Testing Article on MSDN

  I found this new article written by Sachin Rekhi on Database Unit Testing with Team Edition for Database Professionals. I think it's an excellent read. The only thing I don't think it covers is what is not included in the product. The most notable piece Read More... Posted 03 May 2007 09:12 by James.Rowland-Jones | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, Database Development, Team Edition for Database Professionals, Database Unit Test, SQL Server, Datadude