(Stephen Wynkoop) You may have noticed that there are several databases "included" with a general SQL Server installation. Model is one of these. What's it used for? This article takes a look at this database and how you can put it to use to help standardize your installations.

(James Welch) A brief guide to the benefits and downsides of using Identity in SQL; when to use them and the role they play alongside Primary and ordinary keys.

(Stephen Wynkoop) Here's a run-down of the sessions that will be presented by SSWUG at the upcoming SQL Server Connections show in Las Vegas. Register today to reserve your spot!

(Chris Shaw) The point of this article is to highlight what tools that I use with databases and systems I work with daily. I will also mention a tool or two that look like the have a lot of promise, but I have not had a chance to test them completely.

This article will help us to understand how we could write a generic stored Procedure routine in C# using new SQl 2005 catalog views

In this article, Alexander Chigrik looks at ten undocumented SQL Server database engine stored procedures that shipped with SQL Server 2005.

(Noah Subrin) Some e-commerce systems employ a sequential order numbering scheme. In some scenarios this design is not desirable. . I worked for an e-commerce company that did not want its order volume available to competitors, and used a system that generated sequential order numbers. A competitor could place an order first thing in the morning and another order at the end of the day. By subtracting the first order number from the last order number, one could derive a close estimate of the actual orders generated. I was tasked with creating a non-sequential ordering system.

Studying all the aspects of the database is not needed and they will only learn the absolure necessary to integrate a database in an application. This is the main reasons developers are still making the same database mistakes.

(Vadivel Mohanakrishnan) In this article I would explain the way to return comma separated details from a table. As usual complete source code has been attached.

(Stephen Wynkoop) Steve Ballmer came out to introduce SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 - really a combination of services and servers that are the core of the overall Business Intelligence solution set from Microsoft. 'The environment is bigger than the sum of its parts,' Ballmer said. In fact, the major theme has clearly become Business Intelligence as the release of these products has neared.

(Vadivel Mohanakrishnan) In one of the newgroup somebody was asking the way to find whether a column is identity or not. This article explains or answers that with working code snippets.

(Deepankar Bandopadhya) In this short article we shall understand the two new operators provided in SQL SERVER 2005 - Except and Intersect.

(Stephen Wynkoop) TechED 2006 in Boston was a barrage of announcements, messaging and demos. In this article, I'll take a look at some of the announcements and technologies that relate to the database world and let you know what's up.

(Vadivel Mohanakrishnan) This article would explain the way to create thumbnail images from the binary data which is stored in SQL Server.

(Rocco Mastrangelo) This article describes how to use either the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio or Transact-SQL to create a linked server on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for use in accessing data residing on a remote Oracle server. Methods of testing and querying the linked server are also presented. The prerequisite installation of the Oracle client software, necessary for both methods, is also described.

/n Software has released their SSIS Tasks tool set that gives you tasks for integration into SSIS to automate email, FTP, credit card transactions and more. We take a look at the tasks and see how well they work, how well they integrate into the SSIS environment.

ADO.NET has introduced many cool features to improve the scalability and performance of data centric applications. With features like provider independent factory models, support for XQuery handling with xml data type and asynchronous processing techniques, the amount of LOC, code complexity and maintenance has been greatly reduced thus helping the developers to be more productive. In this series of articles, we will explore the new features added to ADO.NET.

This is the second and the concluding part in this series where we will discuss the types of concurrency and the best practices in choosing and working with them.

One of the new Oracle 11g features is the Pivot and Unpivot operators used to summarize rows into summarized pivot tables. This article describes how to use this feature in your Select statements.

Crisp, clear visual representation of information in your reports is key to presenting an effective tool for your end-users. This article takes a look at the Dundas Reporting Services Tool Bundle - and what it can bring to your own Reporting Services work.