I think this is a great conversation, and certainly covers a huge amount of the arguments for and against foreign key constraints! I knew when I set the question that there was an element of subjectivity about it, and that different people sit in diffe...

Should Foreign Key constraints be used in a Data Warehouse?...

What small change can often see dramatic performance improvements when searching wide strings?...

The post tells us about the ERDs for System Views and DMVs and where we can get Microsoft’s own System Views Map for SQL Server 2005 displaying all of the system views and DMVs and their connecting relationships....

A little while ago I thought about putting together my own ERD for the DMVs and System Views.  Everyone in the world of relational databases knows how important and useful such diagrams are, and in the (apparent) absence of a Microsoft one, after m...

SCHEMABINDING is an option that can be applied to Views or Functions. When used, it forces SQL Server to create dependencies between any objects referenced within the View or Function, to the View or Function itself. The post ...

SCHEMABINDING is an option that can be applied to Views or Functions. When used, it forces SQL Server to create dependencies between any objects referenced within the View or Function, to the View or Function itself. What this means is that the re...

<p>Just to add to Nakul's response, I would definitely recommend option 2 - creating a new table with the correct data types and length, then bulk loading the data into it.  If your database is using the full recovery model, then if possible you sh...

<p>It really depends how often the data from each CTE is being referenced.  I haven't been through your query in any detail, but if a CTE is being referenced several times then that dataset is having to be built several times.  By placing the ...

Converting a BIGINT to datetime, the post explains how we can convert such values to datetime values, which are accurate to the nearest 100-nanosecond interval, from 1st January 1601 (UTC). The maths involved is not too complex...