SQL Server Diaries

Also known as Globally Unique Identifiers, GUID values consist of a string of alphanumeric values which in principle should be unique across all machines of the network.  GUID values are stored in a database table using the uniqueidentifier (Transact-SQL) data type and requires 16 bytes of storage space per row.... [Read More]

Managing SQL Server applications can be a bit tricky, especially in an enterprise scenario with tens or hundreds of applications deployed for a large user-base across geographically dispersed locations.  With a bit of planning, events such as database migrations, DBMS upgrade, or server virtualisation to name a few, can be... [Read More]

Database Mail provides functionality to send email using T-SQL and is the successor to SQL Server 2000’s SQL Mail. Although SQL Mail is still available in SQL Server 2005, it is provided for backward compatibility only and the Books Online reccomend that Database Mail is used instead. [Read More]

When performing a database migration from one SQL Server instance to another, the DBA has to transfer all logins which have access to the database.  The transfer will only be successful if the logins retain the same passwords to reduce the impact on the end users, and more specifically, the... [Read More]

In Malta, the Super 5 lottery prize has always been considered the peak of winnings by the Maltese.  So much so that it has become part of the day-to-day language when referring to good luck (I feel I just won the Super 5!).  As a challenge, I thought of how... [Read More]