Now that you’re familiar with stored procedures, it’s time to introduce you to jobs. Jobs are like stored procedures, in that they are a set of steps performed sequentially. Jobs can run T-SQL commands, Integration Services Packages, Analysis Services commands, replication tasks, and even command prompt applications. And what’s the best part? These steps are…
SQL 201 – Indexes
Indexes in Microsoft SQL are just like indexes in a book. They help you jump to the information you want more quickly. In Microsoft SQL you can index one or more columns in a table or view. The indexes defined can help your select statements run much more quickly… but they do have a cost,…
SQL 102 – GRANT
As an administrator, you can execute the SELECT from the Components table and the v_Components view, and execute the usp_GetBatmobileComponentsList procedure; however, your new user cannot. To grant your new user the necessary permissions, use the GRANT statement. Let’s assume for this lesson you’ve already created a SQL Server user [Lucius Fox]. Execute the following…
SQL 102 – Users
Before you got started working with SQL Server, someone had to set up a user account for you. Now that you’re learning to become a database administrator you need to learn to allow others to have access to SQL Servers. Granting a user access to a database takes three steps. First, create a login, second…
SQL 102 – Primary Keys
In SQL 101, I showed you how to create a table. I want to build on that today by introducing the concept of a primary key. A primary key is a column, or combination of columns that uniquely identify the row in the table. By doing this you can have some assurance that the row…
SQL 201 – Views
Previously I showed you how to create tables. The normal goal for designing a table is to store data in such a way that each table contains one group of facts that are highly related to each other. For example, if you had built a contact database, you’d have one table for people, one for…
SQL 201 — User Defined Functions
Back in SQL 101, I introduced you to some functions, GETDATE(), ISNULL(string1, string2), etc. All of these functions come defined in Microsoft SQL before you even install it on your machine. But that’s just the beginning. You can create your own functions to do tasks too! There are two types of user defined functions, table…
A Series for Database Administration
I’m at it again! I’m working on some notes about how to administer a Microsoft Database Server. I’m planning on following the fundamentals you would need to cover the 70-431 (the Microsoft Database Administrator’s exam). I’m doing this to share, but I’m also doing this to help me grow a bit stronger in my Database…
The DBA’s Rules — Rules 3 and 4
In previous posts I shared with you my rules for who does and doesn’t have access to sa, and keeping your data safe by having tested backup and restore procedures. Next I’m covering two related rules. These are to protect me as much as they are to protect you. If you’ve worked in a team…
TOP PERCENT
We have a multi-threaded process that grabs it’s fair share records and then processes them. It basically looks at the total number of records to process, and takes the top 10% of the records and marks them so that no other process will grab those records. If you haven’t done a lot with TOP, then…