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Tim Chapman discusses your iteration choices in SQL Server 2008 and explains why determining which option performs better depends on the situation.

Overgrown transactional log files can turn into real problems if they are not handled properly. Today SQL Server consultant Tim Chapman discusses the perils of not handling SQL Server log growth properly, and what can be done to correct the problems.

You can give your users rights to check if reports have run or jobs are complete without granting full admin rights. Here’s how you can do so by using SQLAgentReaderRole in SQL Server.

If you ever need to sort character strings stored in SQL Server fields, check out this demonstration of how to write a common sorting algorithm using SQL Server TSQL code.

SQL Server 2008 introduces the ability to pass a table data type into stored procedures and functions. The table parameter feature can greatly ease the development process because you no longer need to worry about constructing and parsing XML data. Learn about other benefits of the feature, as well as its minor drawbacks.

Cascading referential integrity constraints are foreign key constraints that tell SQL Server to perform certain actions when a primary key field in a primary key-foreign key relationship is updated or deleted. By using cascading referential integrity constraints, you can define the actions that SQL Server 2005 takes when a user tries to delete or update a key to which existing foreign keys point.

When you use index views in the right situations, they can dramatically improve the performance of SQL Server queries. Tim Chapman explains why performance testing is the best way to tell if indexed views will be beneficial to your database.

A fundamental skill for DBAs is to have a firm understanding of the SQL Server database engine’s system databases. Tim Chapman discusses these system databases.