February 2007 Entries
Looping between a big number of records is a CPU-intensive operation that can have a significant impact on your database performance. I've talked in the past that with SQL Server 2005 you can use SQL CLR (.NET) for improve your performances on CPU-intensive operations, such as looping, iterations, calculations etc. But is it always true that for these types of operations SQL CLR is the best choice? I've tryed a curious test by writing a simple T-SQL stored procedure that makes a big loop and the same I've done via a SQL CLR stored procedure. The T-SQL code is this:...
Not yet a new Service Pack for SQL Server 2005, but a set of new interesting features absolutely to install as soon as possible. Download it and don't forget to check all the interesting new features.
On large database systems, with large numbers of insert and update commands, the problem of index fragmentation is one of the main causes of performance degradation and a proper index optimization strategy is a must. I see every day that many DBAs plans the index optimization via a custom T-SQL script or via the standard SQL Maintenance Plan, but they don't know that actually SQL Server 2005 permits you to "tune" this process. SQL Server 2005 provides an option (ONLINE = ON or OFF) to help manage the performance and concurrency requirements while creating or rebuilding an index. With the...
Finally I'm up again! Unfortunately, someone on my hosting provider has done a new configuration on the web server and he's "accidentally" changed the root folder of my website, causing problems with IIS. Now the site is again up and running... sorry for the inconvenience.
Netcraft has published their last update of an independent survey about web server adoption in the world. On Microsoft we always listen that IIS is gaining a lot on Apache, but the last Netcraft survey gives a clear response: It's true that IIS is growing a lot while Apache is falling down, but the road to reach the rival is really hard for Microsoft's web server. Apache is the market leader but IIS is the most promising for the near future. I'm curious to see the result of this graph when IIS7 will be largely adopted... what will happen?
This is a problem that a customer had in these days: how can I hide a SQL Server 2005 Instance? Very few SQL admins knows that with SQL Server 2005 you can hide a specific instance while the others still remain visible. In oder to make a SQL 2005 instance as "hide", you've to follow these steps: Open SQL Server Configuration Manager and expand the SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration node Right Click on Protocol for and then select Properties In Flag pane there's a field called HideInstance. You've to change this flag from No to Yes....
Today I've started the second of 3 steps in order to achieve the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Database Developer title by passing the exam 70-441: PRO: Designing Database Solutions by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The exam consists of different case studies and you need a good knowledge of how to project applications based on SQL Server 2005, Integration Services, Notification Services, CLR Stored Procedures and Reporting Services. The next step will be 70-442 (one of the problems will be retrieving time to take the exam )...
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 adds two new interesting features that solves lots of troubles for the developers and makes the customer happy: an improved integration with Microsoft Office links management for every entities Now, on every form (so for every NAV entity) you can directly export every record into an Office document, just by pressing some new buttons on the toolbar: The exported document (Excel or Word) is linked with the NAV data, so you can always click the document title and you will be redirected to the corresponding NAV form. The export to Word or...