Loading CSV Files Using Dynamic SQL (SQLServerCentral 9/18/2018)

[SQLServerCentral - www.sqlservercentral.com]( A community of more than 1,600,000 database professionals and growing Featured Contents - [Loading CSV Files Using Dynamic SQL]( - [Gene Kim joins Redgate to discuss The 2018 Accelerate State of DevOps Report]( - [Azure SQL Database High Availability]( - [Calculating Quartiles with DAX and Power BI]( (From the SQLServerCentral Blogs) - [Are scalar functions really a bad thing?]( (From the SQLServerCentral Blogs) The Voice of the DBA Monitoring Costs I'm a believer in instrumentation and metrics being regularly gathered from your systems. Across the years I've built and bought monitoring software to use in various jobs, sometimes in layers where one piece of software uses data from another to provide insight about the way in which applications are performing. By gathering and analyzing this data, I can determine if more or less resources ought to be allocated to meet the demand. No matter how you choose to gather this information, there are costs associated with the effort. Early in the lifecycle of an application, many developers and DBAs might just check to determine if the a system is up. As time passes and dependency increases on the system, there are additional needs to understand more about the system, such as storage, processor usage, and more. SQL Server has certainly matured in this respect as well, with more and more DMVs being added over time to allow more instrumentation of the platform. One of the interesting things that happens when you monitor your systems is that there are various costs to your organization, some of them [hidden](. Certainly purchasing or building software has a cost, but what about the other costs involved? As I work for vendor that sells this software, I'm always amazed how customers view costs. Most understand there are hardware costs, though surprisingly, a few don't expect that. There are other costs, some of which are outlined in the article linked above. There are plenty of time costs, especially associated with learning and configuring the software. In fact, this can be a significant cost. Most customers fail to account for time, and regularly become frustrated as the instrumentation never seems to meet their needs. Either it hasn't been configured to meet your needs, or you haven't learned to use the system well. There are also some people that find the opposite, with monitoring visualizations becoming a time sink, where administrators get lost in the analysis of data and the variety of ways to examine the information available. It's not just administrators, as not shortage of executives have wanted real time visualizations of metrics on systems, sometimes just standing there watching the metrics rise and fall to gain confidence in how well their systems are functioning. There is another cost that many people often forget about as well. Any system that monitors another will impose a load to gather that data. That could be significant, especially if you haven't tuned your software. There will always be some load, and I think it's necessary to have information, but you ought to be sure the load isn't too significant. It's important we monitor our systems. I would never build that system again, but rather buy some piece of software because the process is cumbersome and there are lots of choices for software that someone has spent time building. I'd rather learn to use their application well and let it help me do my job. Steve Jones from [SQLServerCentral.com]( Join the debate, and [respond to today's editorial on the forums]( --------------------------------------------------------------- The Voice of the DBA Podcast Listen to the [MP3 Audio]( ( 4.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at [iTunes]( and [Libsyn](. [feed]( The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. ADVERTISEMENT [SQL Compare]( The industry standard for comparing and deploying SQL Server database schemas Trusted by 71% of Fortune 100 companies, SQL Compare is the fastest way to compare changes, and create and deploy error-free scripts in minutes. Plus you can easily find and fix errors caused by database differences. [Download your free trial]( [Database DevOps]( Continuous Delivery for SQL Server Databases Spend less time managing deployment pain and more time adding value. [Find out how with database DevOps]( Featured Contents  [] [Loading CSV Files Using Dynamic SQL]( Steven Tidwell from [SQLServerCentral.com]() In this article, we will see of a quick way to load CSV files from a directory on your computer.[More »](SQL/176839/) ---------------------------------------------------------------  [] [Gene Kim joins Redgate to discuss The 2018 Accelerate State of DevOps Report]( SQL Server Central editor Steve Jones is joined by acclaimed author and researcher Gene Kim to discuss the latest in all things DevOps.[More »]( ---------------------------------------------------------------  [] [Azure SQL Database High Availability]( Additional Articles from [Database Journal]() Site-wide or region-wide disasters, while undoubtedly more impactful, happen considerably less frequently than downtime resulting from scheduled maintenance events or isolated hardware and software faults. This article provides an overview of the high availability features of Azure SQL Database that mitigate risks affecting services within an individual Azure datacenter, rather than an entire Azure region.[More »]( ---------------------------------------------------------------  [] From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - [Calculating Quartiles with DAX and Power BI]( Dustin Ryan from [SQLServerCentral Blogs]( Like many of my blog posts, this post is inspired by some work I was doing with a customer who...[More »]( ---------------------------------------------------------------  [] From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - [Are scalar functions really a bad thing?]( Daniel Janik from [SQLServerCentral Blogs]( I’ve read a lot of things lately pointing to scalar functions as if they were the devil. In this blog...[More »]( Question of the Day Today's Question (by Steve Jones): I have this table. CREATE TABLE UserConfig ( UserConfigKey INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL CONSTRAINT UserConfigPK PRIMARY KEY , UserID INT , IsActive BIT SPARSE , IsSubscriber BIT SPARSE , DefaultQuantity INT SPARSE ) How do I add a column set to this table? Think you know the answer? [Click here](, and find out if you are right. --------------------------------------------------------------- We keep track of your score to give you bragging rights against your peers. This question is worth 1 point in this category: Column Sets. We'd love to give you credit for your own question and answer. To submit a QOTD, simply log in to the [Contribution Center](. ADVERTISEMENT [The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win]( tag=redgatsof-20 linkCode=as2 camp=1789 creative=9325 creativeASIN=0988262592) The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced. [Get your copy from Amazon today]( tag=redgatsof-20 linkCode=as2 camp=1789 creative=9325 creativeASIN=0988262592). tag=redgatsof-20 linkCode=as2 camp=1789 creative=9325 creativeASIN=0988262592 Yesterday's Question of the Day Yesterday's Question (by Steve Jones): What happens with this code? DECLARE @d DATETIMEOFFSET , @c VARCHAR(50) ; SELECT @d = '20180903 11:55:34 -7' ; SELECT @c = @d ; SELECT @c AS 'TheDate' ; Answer: A conversion error occurs Explanation: A conversion error occurs. This is the error: Msg 241, Level 16, State 1, Line 87 Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string. Ref: Ref: Implicit Conversions - [click here]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [» Discuss this question and answer on the forums]( Database Pros Who Need Your Help Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. 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