Downloads from this Issue

• Reporting Multi-valued Attributes from the Active Directory with SQL Server Reporting Services (download now)
• Implementing Audit History Logs (AKA Audit Logs) in SQL Server (download now)
• Monitor Your Server with SQL Server Reporting Services - Complete article (download now)

Table of Contents

Editorial: A Regulated Life by Steve Jones

Life in a Growing Pharmaceutical Company by Richard Pless The Ovation Research Group works with the pharmeceutical industry and needs to use SQL Server in a regulated environment. Team lead Richard Pless introduces us to the company and his team.
	Automating Database Documentation Using Information Schemas and System Tables by Shilpa Shah Meta data is important to understanding the meaning behind the structures in your database. Shilpa Shah takes a look at how you can get and use meta data in SQL Server 2005.
Reporting Multi-valued Attributes from the Active Directory with SQL Server Reporting Services by Shawn Calderon and Charles Rapier Management of group memberships is critical. Maintaining accurate group membership assures that data are properly disseminated among appropriate audiences. This article provides a simple yet effect way to report group and member data from the Active Directory.
	Monitoring Your SQL Server on the Cheap with SQL Server Reporting Services by Shawn Calderon There are a lot of very nice SQL Server performance monitoring systems on the market, and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, these systems can be cost prohibitive for many small to medium sized businesses. Thankfully, there is an inexpensive alternative. In this article, you will learn how to build your very own SQL Server Hardware monitoring system with tools that would normally be accessible to most DBAs and Developers.
CLR Made CLeaR by Rick Antonini One of the more exciting new features in SQL Server 2005 is the integration of the CLR and the capability to run functions written in any .NET language. See how to get started in this article.
	When LIKE Isn’t Enough: Learning to Love Regular Expressions by Richard Pless and Rick Antonini Regular Expressions are a string manipulator's dream. T-SQL has always suffered from weak capabilities in this area, but see how SQL Server 2005 changes this.
Implementing Audit History Logs (AKA Audit Logs) in SQL Server by Rick Antonini In any regulated environment, auditing is crucial to ensuring that your applications both function properly and secure the data. Here we take a look at how Ovation handles this requirement.
Using XML for Analysis With SQL 2005 Analysis Services Part 2 by Chris Harrington

Last year, in March of 2005, the focus of the entire SQL Server Standard issue was on the Hancock Information Group, a business-to-business sales and marketing firm and the employer of my partner, Andy Warren. It had been his idea in late 2004 that we profile one company and how SQL Server was used in that company. We got lucky in that a few of his developers had written articles before and were eager to contribute, so we spent quite a few months having them take a look at the different ways in which they used SQL Server.

That issue was quite popular, and in the summer of 2005 I was contacted by Richard Pless of the Ovation Research Group, a research and consulting firm for the pharmaceutical and health-care industries. They had enjoyed the articles and were interested in having their company profiled in 2006.

After a few email and phone conversations, we embarked upon the journey of once again profiling how SQL Server is used at one company. This year we are bringing you fewer, but longer and more detailed articles on SQL Server, and I think the result is more interesting.

SQL Server 2005 will really change the way that SQL Server fits into many companies. Ovation is already looking at implementing a number of features, and some of our articles reflect that. We take a look at the CLR and its usefulness in creating functions and then build on that with a second article examining regular expressions called from SQL Server. We take a look at the meta data you can get from SQL Server 2005, which is incredibly extensive and useful. There’s also a very interesting Active Directory/SQL Server integration to show data in Reporting Services for getting security information out to the IT group in real time.

Since Ovation works with quite a few pharmaceutical firms, they fall under some regulations from the US government. This means security, privacy, and auditing are important parts of all their work. We take a look at auditing in general, and specifically in practice, from the point of view of a firm that is required to get it right.

Lastly, with performance always on the mind of a DBA, we have a fantastic article that looks at tracking performance over time. It is a great way for server monitoring on a budget and should help you justify that 64-bit, 256GB of RAM, SQL Server 2005 server for the next budget cycle.

We hope you enjoy this issue and our plan is to try and publish one of these a year, bringing you an in-depth look at one company and the innovative ways in which they use SQL Server in the real world. And the articles are written by the people that actually use SQL Server in their daily job.

Steve Jones

If you are interested in seeing your company and team in print and have a team willing to contribute, send a note to me (sjones@sqlservercentral.com).