OK - you've been hearing about ''cloud'' (I really dislike that term, but whatever) for over two years. You've equated it with just throwing some VM's in some vendor's datacenter - which is certainly part of it, but not the whole story. There's a whole world of - wait for it - *coding* out there that you should be working on. If you're a ...

Back in January 2007, SQL guru Itzik Ben-Gan posted a series of MS Connect enhancement requests concerning windowing function enhancements.  Those who have used the ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), DENSE_RANK(), and NTILE() functions on SQL 2005 and 2008, you already know how useful they are.  They simplify code and can improve performance ...

It's well-known by now that SQL Server 2005 and 2008 include new encryption-related statements that allow you to create and administer encryption keys. You can use CREATE CERTIFICATE to create or import a certificate or DROP ASYMMETRIC KEY to remove an asymmetric key from the database, for instance.  One of the interesting ommissions ...

I used to be a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan, and when a friend today reminded me of the old game of ''Calvinball'' I couldn't help drawing similarities to database and programming projects.   Here are the rules to Calvinball as they apply to database development projects: 1.1. All players must wear a Calvinball mask (See Calvinball Equipment ...

In response to a challenge from Pinal Dave, a fellow MVP and a winner of an award for his blog at the MVP Summit 2009, I am writing a couple of articles to demonstrate practical uses for SQL Server’s XML capabilities.  (Dave’s great blog is at http://blog.sqlauthority.com/). Dave posted the first post in this series over at ...