In every worthwhile project, you’ll hit one or more points where it seems like you’re up against an absolute show-stopper. Maybe the challenge is technical, but just as often it’s organizational or political.
[Read more…] about We are all capable of solving tough problems.Technology
Solve a better problem
A reader left a comment on this blog post I wrote in 2011. The Easter Coder suggests an enhancement to the technical solution I cobbled together for a problem I was facing at the time. After looking back on that solution now that eight years have passed, I’d like to offer a different perspective. [Read more…] about Solve a better problem
Tips, Tricks and Hints for Using SSIS from A-Z
A while back I started keeping a list of all the things I learned to make working with SSIS less painful and I thought I’d share. These are small things: tips, tricks and hints. Just stuff I wish I had known when I first started working with SSIS.
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SSIS Output to Multiple Files
Let’s say a user asks you to create a flat file output from a database query. Piece of cake. Open SSMS, write the query, run it and copy the results (with headers using SSMS 2008) into a text file. Send the user the file and and you’re done with time left over for a siesta.
But oh wait—they want to be able to open it in an older version of Excel, which will only display ~ 65k rows per sheet. This file has 190k rows. So they ask you to write the output to multiple files, limiting the total rows per file to 60k.
Now what?
You could simply open the raw flat file, go to line 60,001 and cut-paste lines 60,001–120,000 into another file and repeat as necessary. That’s ok for a one-off task but not a good strategy if you are going to be doing this several times. It can be cumbersome and error prone to manually create several files this way.
No—the better approach is to make SSIS do the heavy lifting. I had to do this recently and thought I’d share my solution. [Read more…] about SSIS Output to Multiple Files
The Well-Dressed DBA
You may not be aware of this fact but DBAs (database administrators) are actually world renowned for their impeccable display of sartorial savvy. What the average person knows about fashion would fit nicely within a CHAR(4) field. What the DBA knows about fashion requires a VARCHAR(MAX) field. At least.
(Although the author assumes that many of the excellent recommendations below apply to both male and female DBA alike, he is wrong from time to time, like the time he shrunk let a friend shrink a database, and so will below address the male only.)
We begin at the bottom and work our way to the top… [Read more…] about The Well-Dressed DBA