In Part 2, we shift our focus to securing containerized deployments and cloud infrastructure. We will cover Kubernetes security hardening, real-time monitoring, infrastructure as code (IaC) security, and shifting security left to catch misconfigurations early. These strategies will help your team secure workloads in production and respond to potential threats before they lead to a security breach.
2025-05-19
Learn how to safely remove a SQL Server .ndf data file without any downtime using DBCC SHRINKFILE (EMPTYFILE). This hands-on tutorial walks through real-world Azure-based setup, data redistribution, and storage cleanup — ideal for DBAs managing enterprise SQL Server environments.
2025-05-16
2,480 reads
The ASCII function is used to return the ASCII value for the first character in a string.
2025-05-16
First things first: pick up that filthy keyboard, take it over to the trash can, turn it upside down, and give it a good, vigorous shake.
2025-05-14
See how ChatGPT can be used to analyze a dataset, produce charts, and train a model.
2025-05-12
365 reads
Microsoft provides T-SQL developers with three functions (rand, newid, and crypt_gen_random) for generating random numbers. Each of these functions is effective at returning random values, but feature sets associated with each function make them best suited to different use cases. This tip’s Solution section presents an overview of common use cases for random numbers in SQL Server along with references to learn more about random numbers in SQL Server.
2025-05-12
Learn how to work with dates and calculate particular dates or elapsed time periods with some of the functions available in SQL Server.
2025-05-09
2,883 reads
I preface a lot of what I write with whether or not it is for a “practical” use. One of the Simple Talk authors used this function in a forthcoming article. and I realized I hadn’t heard of it before (or I forgot about it… which is not completely unlikely.) The practical use was to generate some data and have at least a little variety to the values.
2025-05-09
I know SQL cursors exist, but I am not sure how or why to use them. Can you provide a SQL cursor example? Can you give any guidance on when to use a SQL Server cursor?
2025-05-07
No, that isn’t an April 1st joke, heh. I know a lot of vendors are shoving AI down your throat, but I can think of a few ways I actually want to get quick, easy advice from large language models (LLM) when I’m calling the sp_Blitz scripts:
2025-05-05
SQL Server 2025 RTM is here, and if you’re running Docker on macOS, you...
By Steve Jones
It’s Monday. I’ve been home since Fri night, but with a busy weekend, I’m...
By Brian Kelley
I mentioned this in my talk on Quantum Computing at the PASS Data Community...
Hi, I want to find all the tables name under a database where tables...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Ending Substring
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Done is Better than Good,...
In Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2025, if I run this, what is returned?
SELECT '[' + SUBSTRING('Steve Jones', 7) + ']' See possible answers