SpurData Blog

Just sticking this here for my own future reference: I asked on 09/11/2024: Wasn't there already an ODBC drive for SQL Server? I'm so confused, lots of drivers have come and gone, and I can't remember their history or which one I should use for which version of SQL Server. CoPilot Responds: I get it, the history of SQL Server drivers can be quite confusing! Here’s a brief overview to help clarify things: ODBC Drivers : SQL Server ODBC Driver : This was the original driver and is still part of Windows Data Access Components, but it’s not recommended for new development 1 . SQL Server Native Client (SNAC) : Introduced with SQL Server 2005, it included both ODBC and OLE DB interfaces. It was used up to SQL Server 2012 1 . Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server : This is the current driver, introduced after SQL Server 2012. It’s updated with the latest features and is recommended for new development 1 . OLE DB Drivers : Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB) : Part o

I've been playing with SQL Agent tokens more, researching how Ola Hallengren uses them in his famous Maintenance Solution, and how you can use them. Particularly I was looking for a way to specify the "ServerName" in the Output File path. You can do this using a token instead of having to customize the MaintenanceSolution.sql script for each server. This is helpful when you're doing environment takeovers and trying to get consistent backups going across several servers. Here is an example of our solution, which is working well. You would modify line 29 of Ola's script:   DECLARE @OutputFileDirectory nvarchar ( max ) = '\\MyBackupServer\DBBACKUPS\ $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR)) \OUTPUT' Then for each job step, Ola will setup the following output file. This can be seen in the "Advanced" properties of a particular Job Step. '\\MyBackupServer\DBBACKUPS\$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR))\OUTPUT\$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(JOBNAME))_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(STEPID))_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(DAT

I’ve submitted a feature request to the Azure DevOps team to allow us the option to search the contents of “deleted” files in the Azure DevOps Repo code search. Feel free to vote for this feature here 😊 https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Search-for-Deleted-Files-and-within-Dele/10689684