Developer hearted / Relational minded

The most recent version can be found here (The detailed Information of the solultion is mentioned here ) I created a minor update for the logging functionality in order to find the right entry point for injecting the code. It turned out that finding the...

  We waited and hoped and now we finally have them. SQL Server BI project templates in Visual Studio 2012. This includes Project templates for SSAS Analysis services projects (.dwproj) SSRS Reporting services projects (.rptproj) SSIS Integration...

( Download at the end of the blog entry ) Testing with realistic parameter sets Ever wanted to test your SQL Server Reporting Services infrastructure against a realistic workload? Most often the problem is where to get the realistic data (parameter...

While becoming familiar and a really big fan of PowerShell, I faced the following issue. During a migration project doing bulk migrations, I needed information Messages (coming to StdOut) as well as error message (coming to StdErr) displayed to the Console...

  I will write everyone who directed me directly again, but for those watching the blog, the ressources linked in the blog entries are online again..finally. Thanks for all your patience ! -Jens

(You find the script at the end of the blog post) People who inherit databases encounter often the same problem. They either don´t have the time “learning” the internals / logic of the existing objects within that database, or...

  One big advantage over recent database projects is the ability to do headless build on a build controller.   There is no straight forward definition of a headless build. In summary you can describe it that only the needed prerequisites are...

While recently writing a windows service which should be a multi-instance Service, I encountered the following challenge. As in SQL Server I wanted to use a similiar naming convention like MyServiceName$InstanceNameHere to distinguish the services from...

Some of us might be still bound to VSDBCMD instead of using the new tools of SSDT like SQLPackage. As frustrating as it is, we need to also get around this and the limitations of the existing error Messages of VSDBCMD. The one you will encounter often...

As I am hosting my sample files on an external server, you may experience a 404 downloading them at the moment. This is due to a server move I am currently in. Sorry for the inconvenience, I will post when they are available again. In the meantime, if...

(Updated version available here) As suggested by M Merrill in my former post of SQLCMDScriptExpander (which can be found here ), I added an option for providing the encoding of files. So I created another option where you can specify the encoding from...

(Code can be downloaded here ) The Backup part “Can you please give me a recent backup of all user databases on that computer please ?” That is the sentence that will delay your planned work for the afternoon and will keep you busy for numerous hours...

As I was asked about a functionality how to check a string for being of the type GUID and only finding either solution with massive string operations, or using TRY..CATCH trying to CAST a value and then returning the CAST or CONVERT result, I created...

Nothing really fancy, but a small script I was now asked twice for. So I thought I publish it for the public and for the reference for others. It simply calculates the percentage of NULL values for a specific table in all columns. The last request was...

  After many months of hard work, collaboration, short weekends and nights, the new ALM Rangers guidance document is out covering Visual Studio Database Projects. Details about the documents and the documents themselves can be found here: Visual...

(Updated version available in this blog post ) How can we expand files from a .sql file referenced with the :r operator ? Ok, lets make a step back in the past and see how we used to reference files in .sql files and calling them via OSQL or ISQL...

  For those asking a couple of times if the JobScripter for SQL Server Agent jobs is also available in 2008… here it is ! The only difference is that the version v2 is now targeting to SMO Assemblies of SQL Server 2008 which is version 10.0. This...

  In some cases it it interesting to know whether a database was directly created on the current version of the running SQL Server instance or if the database was upgraded during an upgrade of the instance or by attaching a database from an older...

  In some cases you might face the problem that SQL Server Agent Service didn't come up or was stopped for reason. Jobs scheduled in the downtime will not run automatically when the Agent service comes up again, and that is a good thing. I often...

  A common question is how to move back to the older version of the database once upgraded. The answer is, you can´t . By attaching the database to the new SQL Server version an upgrade is done internally which can be seen if you run the attach commands...

Some time ago I did a blog entry for SQL Server Integration Services packages as a data source for SQL Server Reporting Services reports. You can find this article here. This feature relies on a data processing extension that is explained in detail here...

Some time ago I got an interesting questions why the following applies: -- drop table a create table a(m varchar ( max ), i int ) go declare @cnt int --Explicit transaction begin tran set @cnt=@@trancount insert into a select 'inside...

  (The project is attached to this blog post, if you have any questions, feel free to send me a mail. You find the bits for download here .) The most recent version can be found here For all of you who haven´t been able to read my blog entry on logging...

Ever wondered what New! means if you see a report in SQL Server Reporting Services Manager ? Obviously it is a report which was created recently. But what does “recently” mean and do I have a way to influence what SQL Server identifies with “New!”. Well...

(Download the dbo.fndblog2 function here ) Update and word of caution: Be aware that   the mentioned function is undocumented and subject to change in any release of SQL Server. You should only use that for investigational purposes and in case you...