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In SQL2005, you can create SQL Agent jobs. They can be scheduled, have multiple steps, alert, notify, etc. Pretty great setup. There are some downfalls though.
Like in order to call a job from a job, you need to execute the second job with T-SQL. Thing is, it doesn’t run synchronously. It runs asynchronously, which [...]

Well, I have been on HostMySite for a few years now, and I just wasn’t liking it. I didn’t have control, and couldn’t do everything I wanted to. Last week I signed up with ServerBeach and I have my own dedicated server. I am running Windows 2003, IIS, SQL, MySQL, PHP, etc.
I changed for [...]

Check these out. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1d3a4a0d-7e0c-4730-8204-e419218c1efc&displaylang=en
If you are a DBA, these are pretty much money. I have seen some many custom implementations and DBA’s trying to get reports like this, and if you have SQL Server 2005 SP2, you can download that and run a SQL script and then you have these reports. [...]

SQL 2005 introduced some cool "data management views" (DMV’s) that let a DBA see what is happening on their database. Previously you had to use undocumented system tables and information schemas to get the info, and a lot of the info wasn’t even available. Well recently I was doing some backup/restore stuff on a database [...]

Ok.. if you are using SSAS 2005 and using the deployment wizard (not using BIDS) - probably because you want to retain your partitions or something. But anyways, if you use it and choose the option to retain your roles, you will deploy, and no one will be able to get to your SSAS DB [...]

Stumbled upon this today
http://search.live.com/macros/sql_server_user_education/booksonline/
Pretty sweet, using search macros, you can search books online..well, ONLINE :)
Here is a search for DATEDIFF
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=DATEDIFF&go=Search&form=QBJK&q1=macro%3Asql_server_user_education.booksonline
Handy little macro if you don’t have SQL BOL installed. You can always search Google or MSDN to find the info, but this seems “scoped” for just what you need for books online, pretty cool if [...]

So, the other day I had to create something in T-SQL that called a MDX query using OpenRowset - this is pretty easy to do, you can query around the openrowset and get the values back you need in a T-SQL Query. This was fine when the MDX query was a static string.
The format of [...]

Since Visual Studio 2008 came out yesterday, I installed it. One gotcha - if you already have SQL 2005 installed, check custom on the install steps, because VS2008 will install SQL Express 2005 and start up an instance of that, I had to then uninstall SQL 2005 Express. PITA :)
Technorati tags: VS2008, Visual Studio 2008, [...]

The other day, working on something crazy, I came across a use for the new UNPIVOT keyword in SQL Server 2005. Now, I figured I would use PIVOT before UNPIVOT, but so it goes.
Basically I had a temp table I populated that had some columns, then columns numbered 1-10 with different values. But I needed [...]

I just got my new laptop, and I am installing Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. Ran into a snag, that took me a little bit to find the answer.
First, SQL Server 2005 setup is just ghetto. There are two setups, “server” and “tools” and sometimes it just doesn’t work right. Anyways, only SQL [...]