Michael Coles: Sergeant SQL : SQL Server 2008

Here Comes the FY11 Earmarks Database

Mike C — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 04:51:00 GMT

I'm really interested in politics (don't worry, I'm not going to start bashing politicians and hammering you with political rage). The point is when the U.S. FY11 Omnibus Spending Bill (the bill to fund the U.S. Government for another year) was announced...(read more)

High Performance Dimensional Data Loads With SSIS Presentation

Mike C — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:25:00 GMT

Just finished giving the SSIS High-Performance Dimensional Data Load presentation at SQLSaturday #59 NYC . Here are the slides in PDF format. I'll upload the Try-N-Save code and sample data later for attendees to play with. Thanks to everyone who attended...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #006: Tiger/Line Spatial Data

Mike C — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:11:00 GMT

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday post is about LOB data http://sqlblog.com/blogs/michael_coles/archive/2010/05/03/t-sql-tuesday-006-what-about-blob.aspx . For this one I decided to post a sample Tiger/Line SQL database I use all the time in live demos. For...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #006: "What About BLOB?"

Mike C — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:29:00 GMT

Invitation for T-SQL Tuesday #006: "What About BLOB?" It's getting warm outside just in time for the May T-SQL Tuesday blog party. I’ll be your host this month--and the secret word for this T-SQL Tuesday is "Large Object (LOB) Data" . What’s T-SQL Tuesday?...(read more)

Find a Hash Collision, Win $100

Mike C — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:38:00 GMT

Margarity Kerns recently published a very nice article at SQL Server Central on using hash functions to detect changes in rows during the data warehouse load ETL process. On the discussion page for the article I noticed a lot of the same old arguments...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #004: Why Doesn't TDE Encrypt My FILESTREAM Data?

Mike C — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:42:00 GMT

This post is my entry for Adam Machanic's T-SQL Tuesday #004 , hosted this time by Mike Walsh . I was at the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week discussing database encryption options in SQL Server 2008 and one question seemed to keep coming up....(read more)

Calculating Holidays in SQL

Mike C — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:51:00 GMT

Ask about nearly any kind of SQL-based date calculation in the newsgroups , and you'll likely get responses that include use of an auxiliary calendar table . It's a really good idea, and something I highly recommend to anyone who has to do date-based...(read more)

Service Packs... Coming to a Download Near You!

Mike C — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:07:00 GMT

Based on feedback from the community ( https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/522123/sql-server-2008-service-pack-2 and https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/522122/service-pack-4-for-sql-server-2005 ), Microsoft has...(read more)

NJ .NET User Group Presentation: Building a SQL Server Search Engine in .NET

Mike C — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:11:00 GMT

I'll be presenting at the Northern NJ .NET User Group meeting on Tuesday February 9. Topics we'll cover include: Intro to SQL Server 2008 Integrated Full-Text Search (iFTS) features and functionality, including: Full-text indexes Thesaurus Word breakers,...(read more)

It's Official - SQLSaturday is Coming to NYC!

Mike C — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:59:00 GMT

New Jersey SQL Server User Group (NJSQL) is bringing SQLSaturday #39 to NYC on April 24, 2010! The free all-day training event will be hosted by Microsoft at their Midtown Manhattan offices. The speaker line-up is growing fast—if you'd like to present,...(read more)

SSIS: Mo' Secure Configurations

Mike C — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:19:00 GMT

I ran into an issue the other day and I needed a solution for automically configuring my SSIS packages from securely stored DBMS connection strings. Problem is that most DBMSs don’t support Integrated Authentication—they require a username and password....(read more)

Parent-Child Build Scripts with SQLCMD

Mike C — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:33:00 GMT

On the SQL Server public programming newsgroup someone recently posted a question about an SSMS error ( "Cannot parse script. 'System.OutOfMemoryException' thrown." ) I hadn’t encountered this error myself, but the workaround is to break up very large...(read more)

Merry Christmas

Mike C — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:59:00 GMT

The script below generates the geekiest Christmas card in the world. To see it, follow these instructions: (1) Copy and paste the script below into SQL Server Management Studio 2008 (2) Execute the script (3) Look at the "Spatial Results" tab in SSMS...(read more)

SQL 2008 Encryption EKM Virtual Event

Mike C — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:50:00 GMT

I'll be presenting at a SafeNet -sponsored virtual event on Dec. 15. The topic is "SQL 2008 Encryption EKM Scenarios". We'll be discussing the practical applications of EKM in SQL Server 2008, and the most common scenarios that require EKM functionality....(read more)

ICANN Approves International (國際) Characters for Domain Names

Mike C — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:05:00 GMT

Many people have complained about the space tradeoff involved in storing international characters in the database (using nvarchar instead of varchar data types, for instance). A lot of folks decided to go ahead and forego the ability to store international...(read more)