Archive for October, 2011
PASS Summit 2012
Yes, I know you just got back from the 2011 Summit. Kinda like I just got back from vacation. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t already started thinking about my next vacation. And you should be thinking about next year’s summit. Why? Because until November 15, 2011, you can register for only $995. Seriously. You [...]
October 31, 2011
Tags: PASS Posted in: Professional Development 
No Comments
SQL Server A to Z – Tempdb
I may be on vacation, but the alphabet goes on. We’re up to the letter T and that stands for tapas, toreadors, and tempdb! Tempdb is a system database with one very special characteristic: it gets recreated every time SQL Server starts up. What is tempdb used for? The first use for tempdb is user [...]
October 27, 2011
Tags: a to z, tempdb Posted in: General No Comments
SQL Server A to Z – Statistics
I may be on vacation, but the alphabet goes on. We’re up to the letter S and that stands for Seville, siesta, and statistics! Suppose you’re invited to join a fantasy football league, but you know absolutely nothing about any of the players (maybe that’s why you were invited). How do you know which quarterback [...]
October 24, 2011
Tags: a to z, statistics Posted in: SQL Tuning 2 Comments
SQL Server A to Z – Recovery Models
I may be on vacation, but the alphabet goes on. We’re up to the letter R and that stands for rest, relaxation, and recovery models! Recovery models define how SQL Server manages the transaction log for your database. You have three options to choose from: Simple, Full, and Bulk-logged. The model you choose will determine [...]
October 20, 2011
Tags: a to z, recovery Posted in: Maintenance No Comments
SQL Server A to Z – Query
Today’s post is brought to you by the letter Q. In SQL Server, the biggest thing that Q stands for is Query. Obviously that’s a mighty broad topic, so today I’m just going to go over some best practices for writing queries that I’ve learned over the years. Nuggets of T-SQL goodness List out the [...]
October 17, 2011
Tags: a to z, best practices, tsql Posted in: T-SQL No Comments
