Articles

Technical Article

Maintaining a grouped running MAX (or MIN)

If you're on SQL Server 2012 or greater, you definitely want to become familiar with all of the extensions to the windowing functions first introduced in SQL Server 2005 – they may give you some pretty serious performance boosts when revisiting code that is still running "the old way." Aaron Bertrand explains.

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2015-10-21

4,230 reads

External Article

SQLXML Bulk Loader: The Sequel

SQLXML isn't exactly new technology, and parts of it aren't pretty, but if you need to heave vast quantities of XML data into a SQL Server database then you may come to appreciate the raw speed of which it's capable. Adam Aspin shows how to configure the SQL XML Bulk Loader tool for optimal data loading performance.

2015-10-20

2,973 reads

Technical Article

Optimizing Your Query Plans with the SQL Server 2014 Cardinality Estimator

This paper provides an overview of the primary changes made to the cardinality estimator functionality by the Microsoft query processor team, covering how to enable and disable the new cardinality estimator behavior, and showing how to troubleshoot plan-quality regressions if and when they occur.

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2015-10-19

4,120 reads

External Article

Webinar: Redgate Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) Demo

SSC's Steve Jones will show you how Redgate's DLM solution works to improve your database development and deployment processes. You'll see how to version control your databases from SSMS to track and understand changes, include your database in your Continuous Integration process to get quick feedback, automate your database deployment process to have safe, reliable, repeatable deployments, and more.

2015-10-19 (first published: )

4,162 reads

Blogs

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Symmetric Key Encryption

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

By Pablo Echeverria

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Building Your Own Software

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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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