In this second delve into data cleanliness (read the first, How clean is your data?, here), we’ll test-drive the data profiling tool provided with Microsoft SQL Server. Other profiling tools have ...

SQL Server 2008 Integration Services ships with the wonderful new Data Profiling Task. Much as the name implies, it profiles the data in a given table and returns a ton of useful information. The task ...

When it comes to improving the performance of database systems, there are nearly as many approaches as there are DBA (database administrator) teams. That might sound acceptable at first glance. But, ...

As we’ve come to expect from new SQL Server releases, SQL Server 2012 has so many new features that it’s impossible even to mention them all. Nearly everyone is well served, from the BI-hungry users ...

Many of the new features coming in SQL Server 2014, now available in Community Technology Preview, are encapsulated within broader and rather intuitive categories. The major categories for new ...

I have been testing SQL Server 2008 RC0 (Release Candidate Zero) that was made available recently and I must admit I am beginning to like it. Even the new logo is growing on me. There are many new ...

No fooling: The next version of Microsoft's flagship database will be available on April 1. SQL Server 2014 hit its "release-to-manufacturing" milestone today, which typically falls several weeks ...

Building on the DATETIMEFROMPARTS, DATETIME2FROMPARTS offers similar functionality, but yields more precise DateTime2 data type, containing fractions of a second to a specified precision. Naturally, ...

Almost 4000 people from 48 different countries congregated in Seattle to mark the beginning of the most attended PASS Summit ever. Thousands more attended via the first ever live-streaming of the ...