Articles

Technical Article

Common Vulnerabilities in Database Security

Creating an enterprise security plan is a complex endeavour. It involves evaluating multiple threats that gain access through many network paths to a hodgepodge of different applications and systems. With the focus on systems and paths, databases are frequently overlooked. Securing the database should be a fundamental tenet for any security practitioner when developing his or her security plan. The database is the source of data, the "crown jewels" in the information economy. Any security effort must start with this in mind and end with the strongest level of controls applied at the database layer.

2004-11-26

2,129 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Clustering SQL Server 2000 from 500 Feet

Clustering a SQL Server machine was one of the most frustrating tasks a DBA and Windows administrator had to accomplish in SQL Server 7.0 and Windows NT 4.0. With the maturity of both the OS and the DBMS in Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000, this operation has been simplified tremendously. This first article in the series of article on clustering SQL Server will explain the general architecture of clustering.

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2004-11-25 (first published: )

68,332 reads

Technical Article

Building a 24 x 7 Database

Over the last few years, corporations have invested billions of dollars to integrate the automations of core business systems in large ERP applications. This paper looks at the risk of downtime and solutions for building an around-the-clock database.

2004-11-24

2,129 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

SQL MAIL Using POP3 and SMTP

SQL Server has a great build in messaging system with SQLMail. Unfortunately it requires Outlook and Exchange to work properly. Some people don't like this or do not run Exchange and have issues getting it to work. Gregory Larsen takes a look at how you can use SMTP to send email from SQL Server.

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2004-11-23

21,153 reads

Technical Article

Updating Data in Linked Servers, Information Schema Views, and More

E
very day a developer somewhere needs to write code to iterate through SQL Server™ system objects, query and update tables in linked servers, handle optimistic concurrency, and retrieve column and stored procedure metadata. In this month's column, I will address these and other T-SQL development scenarios based on some of the questions I most frequently receive from readers.

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2004-11-23

1,686 reads

Technical Article

Writing Secure Transact-SQL

There are plenty of good sources of information about how to deploy SQL Server in a secure fashion. However, these resources are often targeted at database administrators tasked with securing already developed applications. In addition, there is a rich body of information that discusses writing secure .NET and ASP.NET code, including .NET code that accesses SQL Server. However, many of these resources focus on the data access code that runs on the application servers rather than the Transact-SQL (T-SQL) code that executes within SQL Server. Developing T-SQL code that runs securely on SQL Server is the primary focus of this column.

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2004-11-22

2,400 reads

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Backing Up a DMK

In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?

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