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 my session and thanks to Melissa D. and NJSQL for putting this ...

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 against using hash functions to detect change.  After having this same discussion ...

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 calculations on the server.  For those who do dimensional modeling, you'll probably ...

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 announced plans to release Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008 and Service Pack 4 for SQL ...

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, filters and stemming Multilanguage support Intro to SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM ...

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, visit the event's open call for speakers.  This is a free full-day ...

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 scripts (50+ MB) into smaller scripts. Adam Machanic posted a T-SQL Tuesday challenge to post a ...

The NJSQL user group is hosting a one-day Saturday SQL Server event at the Microsoft Iselin offices.  On October 24th Jacob Sebastian, Robert Pearl and I will be presenting on the following SQL Server topics: * T-SQL Defensive coding and exception handling best practices* Database forensics in SQL Server (''Who did it and ran?'')* SQL Server ...

The encryption features in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 provide the ability to create asymmetric encryption key pairs (RSA public/private key pairs) using the T-SQL CREATE ASYMMETRIC KEY statement. One feature that was left out, however, is the ability to backup and restore asymmetric key pairs generated on the server. Once an asymmetric key pair has ...

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 ...