Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here’s a quick tip if you don’t want to try to use random and figure out seed, etc.  If you’ve got a lot of columns in a table, it is pretty likely that the checksum for all those data values … Continue reading →

For today, I recycle bits from a couple of excellent authors in the SQL community.  The first script is for optimizing compression.  I “borrowed” this from Paul Nielson, author of the SQL Bible.  You can visit his SQL Server bible … Continue reading →

If you’re like me, you like GUIs even for SQL Server, they make it easier to do things quickly without having to remember a lot of syntax.  But GUIs within Management Studio ultimately have to fire off TSQL to perform … Continue reading →

Been working with 2 PCIE Fusion cards testing out performance for my SQL Server simulation database.  I also have a raid set of 3 Intel X25-E SSDs.  This is a technology to take seriously.  The folks at Fusion have been … Continue reading →

I’m back after 2 months of non-posting – and with my usual nonsensical titles.  Today, we will have some real fun with a technique that helps in analyzing historical data.  We will use my favorite example, the stock market.  We’ll … Continue reading →

After a long and painful process, I have finally achieved this.   Was it worth it, would I do it again?  Absolutely.  But please don’t call me Master Bob, Microsoft Bob is fine… I am doing quite a bit more work … Continue reading →

I apologize as I notice there are some inquiries related to code posted.  I should probably set expectations about this, as I am not the typical Microsoft employee with a MSDN blog.  Most of the other folks with MSDN blogs … Continue reading →

This weekend I played with partitioning.  I have a table with about 10 million rows spanning the last 6 years of stock history for AMEX, NYSE, Indexes, and NASDAQ.   I partitioned each year into a separate filegroup so that should … Continue reading →

With SQL Server 2008, Microsoft re-architected SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to no longer have an IIS dependency.  It now relies directly on HTTP.SYS and handles web protocols independently.   This is a good thing, in a lot of respects (see … Continue reading →

If you’ve been following my blog, you may remember an article I did extolling the virtues of indexed views – http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoftbob/archive/2009/05/13/sql-data-warehousing-tip-2-indexed-views.aspx.  I stand behind that and have found this feature extremely useful.  In fact in my last post the 11 … Continue reading →