Scheduling Jobs in SQL Server Express
As we all know SQL Server 2005 Express is a very powerful free edition of SQL Server 2005. However it does not contain SQL Server Agent service. Because of this scheduling jobs is not possible. So if we want to do this we have to install a free or commercial 3rd party product. This usually isn't allowed due to the security policies of many hosting companies and thus presents a problem. Maybe we want to schedule daily backups, database reindexing, statistics updating, etc. This is why I wanted to have a solution based only on SQL Server 2005 Express and not dependent on the hosting company. And of course there is one based on our old friend the Service Broker. 
Using SET NULL and SET DEFAULT with Foreign Key Constraints
Cascading Updates and Deletes, introduced with SQL Server 2000, were such an important, crucial feature that it is hard to imagine providing referential integrity without them. One of the new features in SQL Server 2005 that hasn't gotten a lot of press from what I've read is the new options for the ON DELETE and ON UPDATE clauses: SET NULL and SET DEFAULT. Let's take a look!
SQLTeam.com Reader Survey
I'm conducting a survey of the readers on the site. If you have a few moments I'd appreciate it if you could fill it out. It's only nine questions and will take just a few minutes. I'm trying to learn more about what topics are interesting to SQLTeam readers.
SQL Server 2008: Table Valued Parameters
In SQL Server 2005 and earlier, it is not possible to pass a table variable as a parameter to a stored procedure. When multiple rows of data to SQL Server need to send multiple rows of data to SQL Server, developers either had to send one row at a time or come up with other workarounds to meet requirements. While a VB.Net developer recently informed me that there is a SQLBulkCopy object available in .Net to send multiple rows of data to SQL Server at once, the data still can not be passed to a stored proc. Possibly the most anticipated T-SQL feature of SQL Server 2008 is the new Table-Valued Parameters. This is the ability to easily pass a table to a stored procedure from T-SQL code or from an application as a parameter. 
Alerts for when Login Failures Strike
When repeated SQL Server login failures occur, a DBA should investigate. It could just be someone repeatedly typing in the wrong password. Worst case is a virus attack flooding your network with connection requests. Receiving an e-mail while login failures are occurring allows DBAs to investigate and fix the issue as soon as possible. So how is DBA notified of login failures without flooding their inbox? 
PASS Summit 2008 Speaker List
PASS released the list of Spotlight Speakers and their session titles and abstracts. They also released a partial list of the regular session speakers with their titles and abstracts. This is the first 50 sessions of the 130+ total sessions. As more speakers confirm their participation they'll update the speaker list. Don't forget that the price increases by $200 after June 30th, 2008.
Implementing Table Interfaces
Last time, we discussed Table inheritance, which allowed us to easily reduce redundancies in our table design by creating "base" or "super" tables that contain columns and relations that "sub-tables" automatically inherit.
That generally works well, but what if you just want to have several entities share a relation, but no common attributes? That is, the entities are not really the same type, and a base class wouldn't make a lot of sense. For example, suppose you are modeling Employees and Offices, and both entities can have multiple phone numbers that you'd like to store. Is there a simple way to create a data model for that without the need for redundant tables and code? 
Using xp_ReadErrorLog in SQL Server 2005
I would like to share some interesting parameters I found for the undocumented extended stored procedure xp_ReadErrorLog. In doing some testing with this extended stored procedure I found four very interesting parameters. Adding to some of the articles already on the web that discuss undocumented stored procedures, in this article I will explain my testing, use and some examples of the procedure. 
ApexSQL Giving Away 25 Copies of Enforce
ApexSQL is launching a new product called Enforce. As part of their launch they are giving away twenty-five copies to our members for participating in the forums. Read on for the details and to find out if you've already won. 
Joining to the Next Sequential Row
One of the more obscure requirements that a developer may find themselves facing is the need to compare a row with its immediate sibling. One such case is when a list of values needs to be processed to produce a moving average or to smooth a sequence of statistical numbers where their order is important. For example, values lying along a time line. The solution is actually quite simple, but not immediately obvious. 
Using the TIME data type in SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 introduces a TIME data type which allows us to store the time without the date. 
Implementing Table Inheritance in SQL Server
When designing a database, we sometimes come across situations where there are multiple types of entities that we are modeling, but we'd like them to all have certain attributes or relations in common. Using "sub-type" tables is a simple way to implement table inheritance in SQL Server. 
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