TSQL Tuesday # 104

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Bert Wagner (blog | twitter) - Code You Would Hate To Live Without. He wants you to share about the code that you would hate to live without, whether yours or someone else's.

I know there will be a lot of wonderful posts about this topic! I have 2 things that stand out as scripts I love.

• I changed a stored procedure which used a cursor and ran for 45 mins, into a set-based query that runs in less than 5 mins. While I know I am stretching the topic just a little, it is something I think about often, very proudly. This was something that helped cement the idea that I was on the right path in my career. I knew I loved working with data and databases, but I remember the level of excitement I had when I got it to work. :)

• The other script is something I put together which works with log shipping for multiple databases. I made a robust, automated process from start to finish. There are still improvements I would make to it, but I dont work for that company anymore, so I probably wont have a chance in production for a while. The vendor had multiple databases (approx 45) and that number would continue to grow as we added more businesses. Therefore, the solution had to be dynamic, nimble and easy to maintain. I am proud of the documentation (ohhh... I said a bad word), workflows and full process with error handling, I set up. It was also easy to troubleshoot and only run one or a few databases at a time if only some were lagging behind.

While neither script is a general purpose script (they are specific to the company I worked for at the time), they both make me feel confident in my abilities as a DBA. I know that I can keep at something to make it eventually bend to my will (muwhahha), and enjoy myself along the way.