All Articles - SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

SQL SERVER – SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 4 – Download

October 12, 2014

It has been a long time since SQL Server 2008 got Service Pack Update. Microsoft has finally released SQL Server 2008 service pack 4 and its feature pack. SQL Server 2008 SP4 contains fixes to issues reported as well as Hotfix solutions have provided since SQL Server 2008 Service Pack…

SQL SERVER – Add Auto Incremental Identity Column to Table After Creating Table

October 11, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Identity, SQL Scripts

Question: Is it possible to add an auto incremental identity column to any table in SQL Server after creating a table. Answer: There are two answers – No and Yes. Let us see them one by one. Answer No – If you have an integer column in your table and…

SQL SERVER – Row Offset in SQL Server For Different Version

October 10, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Performance, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

A very common question is how to find row offset in SQL Server. Here are a few examples based on different version of SQL Server. I have included SQL Server 2000 event, though it is almost 15 years old product and I encounter is less and less every day on…

SQL SERVER – Tuning Queries is Sometimes Waste of Time – Notes from the Field #049

October 9, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

Notes from the Field, SQL Server Security

[Note from Pinal]: This is a 49th episode of Notes from the Field series. Every day I get few emails where I am asked how to tune queries so the entire server run faster. I always end up writing long answer this question. The reason is simple – query tuning…

SQL SERVER – Reset the Identity SEED After ROLLBACK or ERROR

October 8, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Identity

I have been blogging for almost 8 years now. I believe I have seen pretty much every single kind of email and comments I can receive from users. However, there are sometimes few which just are so interesting that I feel like blogging about it. This blog post is written…

MySQL – Scaling Existing Applications: Key Observations and Measurements

October 7, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

MySQL, ScaleBase

In the earlier blog post we discussed about How to Create a Distributed Relational SQL Database, today we will continue to learn about Scaling Existing Applications: Key Observations and Measurements. In the use case of an existing application that is on the verge of reaching the limits of its monolithic…

MySQL – How to Create a Distributed Relational SQL Database

October 6, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

MySQL, ScaleBase

Distributed relational databases are a perfect match for Cloud computing models and distributed Cloud infrastructure. As such, they are the way forward for delivering new web scale applications. But how is the data distributed in a distributed relational database? What is the best way to distribute data for my applications?…

SQL SERVER – How to Catch Errors While Inserting Values in Table

October 5, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Error Messages

Question: “I often get errors when I insert values into a table, I want to gracefully catch them, how do I do that.” Answer: Very simple. Just use TRY… CATCH. Here is the simple example of TRY…CATCH I have blogged earlier when it was introduced. Here is the example, I…

SQL SERVER – How to Find Running Total in SQL Server

October 4, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

Finding running total is one of the most popular request user encounters in the industry. There are two different ways to find out running totals. One of the methods is as per SQL Server 2008 R2 and earlier version. This is indeed a very expensive version of finding running total…

SQL SERVER – GROUP BY Columns with XMLPATH – Comma Delimit Multiple Rows

October 3, 2014

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Scripts, SQL Server

This is one of the most popular question and I keep on getting again and again in email, Facebook and on social media. I have decided to write about it here in the blog so in future I can directly give a reference. Here is the question – there is…