A complete introduction to SQL Server 2008 Profiler: creating, watching, storing and replaying traces, and whether to run it on a production server.
MIN and MAX Text: Collation Chooses the Extremes
MIN and MAX text use collation ordering, not numeric magnitude. Compare digit strings, empty text and NULL using an explicit BIN2 contract.
Monitoring With What You Already Have
Build useful SQL Server alerts with Agent, operators, failed-job notifications, and a review routine that verifies the whole delivery path.
Date Conversion Styles: Disambiguate Day and Month
Date conversion styles define how incoming text becomes a date. Compare month-first and day-first interpretations without guessing. Keep invalid dates separate from missing input.
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Copy Database With Data – Generate T-SQL For Inserting Data From One Table to Another Table
SQL Server 2008 lets you copy database with data: turn on Script Data in the Generate Scripts wizard to get INSERT statements for the rows in your tables.
XQuery string-length: Count Content Without Markup
XQuery string-length counts the selected element string value. Seven bounded cases separate content from markup, empty elements from missing elements, and missing XML from existing documents.
Finding Duplicates Before Adding a Unique Constraint
A unique constraint fails on the first duplicate it meets and tells you about only one. Here is how to list them all and clean up safely.