Fast Guide

Fast Guide: Avoiding data integrity gotchas

When asked to prioritize your job duties as a DBA, you may not immediately think to add "ensure data integrity" to the top of list -- yet it is critical to the success of your SQL Server.

By definition, data integrity

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assures that information can only be accessed or modified by those authorized to do so. You may protect the physical environment, restrict access, segregate data, maintain a solid set of backups or any number of other tasks for integrity's sake, but improperly performing such tasks can harm integrity as well. In this fast guide, we offers tip and tricks to ensure and maintain data integrity, with a particular focus on avoiding the "gotchas" that can compromise your data.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
   Ensuring data integrity
   Avoiding data integrity gotchas
   Maintaining data integrity

  Ensuring data integrity Return to Table of Contents

  • Step-by-Step Guide: Ensuring data integrity in SQL Server
    Get detailed steps to enforce and ensure SQL Server data integrity in this guide.

  • Do people really understand data warehousing?
    A data warehousing initiative shouldn't result in multiple data silos, but too often that's just what happens. One columnist identifies the problem.

  • Building a scalable SQL Server
    How well SQL Server functions over time depends on how you've built your database, where you put your code and how you handle business logic. Get tips for improved scalability.

  • Transforming data with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DTS
    Find out how to use DTS in SQL Server 2000 to ensure data integrity by importing exporting and transforming data from disparate sources into single or multiple destinations.

      Avoiding data integrity gotchas Return to Table of Contents

  • Use caution when backing up or restoring a single table
    Data integrity may be compromised if a single-table restore isn't properly handled. Find out what precautions you must take.

  • Preserving Unicode data integrity
    Mixing Unicode's multiple encoding methods can lead to damaged or improperly stored data. Get steps to preserve your Unicode data.

  • Test for hardware problems with PHYSICAL_ONLY
    SQL Server 2000's PHYSICAL_ONLY helps you find hardware problems before they result in data loss. Learn how to use this option to maintain data integrity.

  • Take caution when cleansing redundant delimiters
    You'll want to cleanse data of delimiters for storage -- but beware that removing some delimiters can harm data integrity.

  • Difficulty ensuring data integrity when storing XML data
    Beware the ramifications of storing XML data in SQL Server 2005 using the new XML data type.

  • Worst practices for backup and recovery
    The success of your backup and restore efforts depends more on small mistakes made than on best practices followed. Find out which backup and recovery worst practices to avoid.

      Maintaining data integrity Return to Table of Contents

  • Maintenance checks for SQL Server
    Get a list of activities appearing on a typical maintenance plan schedule, and learn how to use DBCC commands and stored procedures associated with each aspect of database maintenance.

  • Troubleshooting triggers in SQL Server
    Triggers allow you to control how your database responds to INSERTs, DELETEs and UPDATEs, and they can be used to maintain data integrity -- but they may slow or fail to run. Get troubleshooting tips here.

  • Maximize large data with the new MAX data types
    MAX data types add a great element of flexibility to handling large data in SQL Server 2005. Find out how you can benefit.

    This was first published in October 2005

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