Readers' Choice

September 2005

The verdict is in! Check out the results of SQL Server Magazine's Readers' Choice awards and see what you decided were the best products in more than 50 categories! Also learn how to automate data analysis with SQL Server 2005's new BI tools, and more!

ADO, XML, and IDEs: Full-Featured Tools Spell Success for Developers

By Dawn Cyr

Readers choose their favorite developer tools.

Indexed Views in SQL Server

By Brian Moran

It is possible to use an indexed view in SQL Server Standard Edition.

Governmental Requirements Push Data-Protection Vendors to Comply

By Dawn Cyr

Readers chose disaster-prevention and recovery tools that help them comply with governmental legislation for data protection.

New Products, September 2005

By Dawn Cyr

Check out new and improved SQL Server–related products.

Dell Products Rule Hardware

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.

Developing Familiarity with BI

By Brian Larson

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.

The Logical Puzzle

By Itzik Ben-Gan

Learn the solution to August's puzzle, Covering a Chessboard with Domino Tiles, and see whether you can find The Missing Buck in September's puzzle.

A Close Race for SQL Server Books and Training Courses

By Jessica Heckathorn

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.

Dell and EMC Offer Top Storage Solutions

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.

Performance-Tuning the Data Model: Thinner is Better

By Michelle A. Poolet

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.

Snare Those Errors

By Phillip Yale

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.

Beef Up Your Security with These Top Products

By Jessica Heckathorn

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.

What To Do About Fat Albert?

By Michelle A. Poolet

Learn to slim down fat tables by using data-model optimization techniques.

Administrative Tools Keep SQL Server Running Smoothly

By

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.

2005 Readers' Choice Awards

By Dianne Russell

Get an overview of the Readers' Choice Awards program and see which vendors took the top 5 honors in this year's contest.

Seek and You Shall Find

By Kalen Delaney

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?

Don’t Avoid the UNKNOWN

By Itzik Ben-Gan

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.

The SQL Server Steamroller

By Michael Otey

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.

SQL Server 2000 SP4

By Michael Otey

It's patching time for SQL Server DBAs everywhere! Michael Otey shares six important updates that SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) includes.

Using Sp_configure To Change a Value Will Issue DBCC FREEPROCCACHE

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.

Practical BI: Tools at Hand Are Tools of Choice

By Dawn Cyr

Voters choose Microsoft's built-in BI tools as their favorites.

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