SQL Server Magazine September 2005

[Focus]
Get an overview of the Readers' Choice Awards program and see which vendors took the top 5 honors in this year's contest.
By Dianne Russell
SQL Server professionals need technical resources that provide quality, in-depth content in an easy-to-digest format. Readers' Choice voters selected winners in two technical-resource categories.
By Jessica Heckathorn
Administrative tools can make a SQL Server DBA's job heaven or hell. Find out which products our readers voted as the most help in managing their servers.
By Editors
Readers choose their favorite developer tools.
By Dawn Cyr
The proliferation of interconnected applications sharing data across intranets and the Internet, makes security more crucial than ever to organizations of all types. The following winning products help make databases and their applications more secure.
By Jessica Heckathorn
Capacity, availability, and speed are the most important considerations when choosing storage products. Readers' Choice voters chose Dell and EMC products as their top storage solutions.
By Jessica Heckathorn
Available in a seemingly endless array of memory, networking, storage, processor, and expandability options, Readers' Choice voters selected Dell server systems because they best suited their needs.
By Jessica Heckathorn
Readers chose disaster-prevention and recovery tools that help them comply with governmental legislation for data protection.
By Dawn Cyr
Voters choose Microsoft's built-in BI tools as their favorites.
By Dawn Cyr
[Features]
SQL Server 2005’s BI tools might seem intimidating to relational database developers. But three new tasks offer and easy introduction to automating data analysis and data mining.
By Brian Larson
Error handling is an essential part of T-SQL code, but the use and misuse of error-handling routines is poorly understood. Use these error-handling templates to avoid pitfalls and catch errors before they snag your production code.
By Phillip Yale
[SQL Server Savvy]
It is possible to use an indexed view in SQL Server Standard Edition.
By Brian Moran
Many people don't know that using sp_configure to change a configuration value causes SQL Server to issue a DBCC FREEPROCCACHE statement.
By Brian Moran
[Editorial]
In sharp contrast to most of Microsoft and the computer industry in general, SQL Server posted double-digit growth numbers for Q3 2005. This marked the 11th straight quarter that SQL Server achieved double-digit revenue growth.
By Michael Otey
[Inside SQL Server]
There’s so much to know about metadata in SQL Server 2005—and plenty of changes, too. How do you find everything you’re looking for?
By Kalen Delaney
[Solutions by Design]
In an optimized data model, thin tables give good performance because lean tables require fewer I/O rounds and less storage space. To improve your database performance, take a look at the “thinner is better” concept and learn how to put tables on a diet.
By Michelle A. Poolet
[T-SQL Black Belt]
The concepts of NULL and UNKNOWN are difficult to understand, especially in T-SQL code. However, if you become familiar with their subtleties, they can be quite useful.
By Itzik Ben-Gan
[New Products]
Check out new and improved SQL Server–related products.
By Dawn Cyr
[SELECT TOP(X)]
It's patching time for SQL Server DBAs everywhere! Michael Otey shares six important updates that SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) includes.
By Michael Otey
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