Andy Warren

I started my SQL journey here at SQLServerCentral as one of the founders, helping to build a place to share and learn that continues to thrive under the editorial guidance of my friend Steve Jones. I've done a lot of volunteer work over the years ranging from our local SQL group (oPASS, SQLOrlando) to serving on the Board of Directors of PASS to designing and building the framework of SQLSaturday (which has gone on to produce more than 1000 locally managed events since we started in 2007). These days I manage a DBA team, but over the years I've been a trainer, consultant, contractor, and DBA. I'm rarely present on social media, the best way to contact me is here, LinkedIn, or via email.

Blog Post

Catching Up On SQLOrlando

Somehow two years have elapsed since my last update; hopefully it won’t be that long before the next one. My last post was about SQLSaturday Orlando 2023. Since then,...

2026-01-16 (first published: )

186 reads

Blogs

Claude finds two cryptographic weaknesses (but the sky isn’t falling)

By

If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...

Generate Embeddings in SQL with Aurora and Bedrock

By

Most embedding pipelines on AWS have the same shape: a job reads rows out...

Resolving SQL Server Transaction Log Issues Efficiently

By

Transaction log issues are one of the quietest ways a healthy database turns into...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Symmetric Key Encryption

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Symmetric Key Encryption

The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why Your Login Auditing Strategy Might Be Hurting Your Server

By Pablo Echeverria

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...

Building Your Own Software

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Symmetric Key Encryption

If I run this statement in SQL Server 2025, how is the password encrypted?

CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY MySymmetricKey
WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256,
KEY_SOURCE = 'My secret key source passphrase',
IDENTITY_VALUE = 'My secret identity value'
ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S&perS#cretP@ssword7';
GO

See possible answers