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[Focus]

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COTS It's Not
Find out how Michael Rhodes and the Teksouth development team created an advanced decision-support system for one of the largest and most complex networks in the world.
 — Michael Rhodes


Dynamic Reloading
Innovator Awards runner-up Mike Smith uses a dynamic stored procedure solution to give him the speed and flexibility to offer his end users more pre-built business intelligence results.
 — Mike Smith


Monitoring the World
Learn how Innovator Awards grand-prize winner Arindam Sen created a monitoring, alerting, and reporting system that increased systems availability, boosted revenue, satisfied end-users and Sarbanes-Oxley auditors, and polished SQL Server's image.
 — Arindam Sen


Seamless SQL Server Encryption
A seamless database server-side encryption solution based on the Microsoft .NET Framework and SQL Server extended stored procedures was the second runner-up in our 2004 Innovator Awards.
 — Zewei Song


SQL Server Magazine Innovator Award Winners
Dive into the top four 2004 Innovator Award solutions, exploring the business problems the winners faced, how they developed their solutions, and the benefits and ROI their companies experienced from the creative use of SQL Server and .NET technology.
 — Editors

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[Features]

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Reporting Services 101
Although much excitement surrounded last year's release of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services, some SQL Server professionals have put off adopting it. If you're ready to give Reporting Services a try, here's a tutorial that will get you started.
 — Rick Dobson


Semantic Heterogeneity Spells Trouble
If you've had to combine data sets from different databases, you've probably encountered a semantic heterogeneity: data that doesn’t match in format and therefore is difficult to merge.
 — Andras Belokosztolszki

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[SQL Server Savvy]

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Choosing SELECT Statements
Many people incorrectly think that ANSI doesn't support the ability to define a JOIN condition in a query's WHERE predicate. In truth, ANSI lets you define a JOIN condition in either a query's WHERE clause or its JOIN clause.
 — Brian Moran


OSQL Returns Strange Results
Have you seen OSQL -L return servers that don't have SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) installed? Here's why...
 — Brian Moran

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[Editorial]

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Extreme Outsourcing: Risky Business?
Offshoring, outsourcing's extreme cousin, might save organizations some money in the short term, but it has costs of its own.
 — Michael Otey

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[Inside SQL Server]

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Index Internal Information
You can't always get the information you want about indexes--at least not in Microsoft-approved ways. Here are some less-traveled paths to enlightenment.
 — Kalen Delaney

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[T-SQL Black Belt]

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Grouping Ranges
Find groups of dates in a sample retail-activity application, then try a purely logical exercise to strengthen your mental muscles.
 — Itzik Ben-Gan

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[Letters]

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Letters, January 2005
Readers ask about when cursors are better than set-based approaches and share tips for managing trace files.
 — Various Authors

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[New Products]

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New Products, January 2005
Check out the latest SQL Server-related products.
 — Dawn Cyr

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[SELECT TOP(X)]

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Calling All COM Objects
SQL Server stored procedures and extended stored procedures perform a variety of database-related functions. Here are seven sp_OA stored procedures that you can use for OLE Automation.
 — Michael Otey

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[Lessons from the Field]

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Memory Matters
Memory pressure can be a drain on your system’s resources. Microsoft’s SQL Server Customer Advisory Team shows you how to find and resolve memory pressure--before you decide you need more memory.
 — Prakash Sundaresan

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[Ask Microsoft]

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IF Statements and Stored Procedure Performance
Microsoft's Gert Drapers says that if SQL Server is selecting different query plans based on different branches in a stored procedure, you're better off splitting the code into separate procedures.
 — Microsoft's SQL Server Development Team