Dealing with the Evil of FMTONLY from SSRS
SSRS continues to use SET FMTONLY ON even though it has many problems. How can we cope?
2014-12-23
10,629 reads
Articles
Practical PowerShell Unit-Testing: Mock Objects
Pester allows you to automate the testing of PowerShell scripts. It can test the output of a function as you develop it by validating simple data (scalars) and arrays, and allows you to focus on the one function you want to test by using 'mocking' to fake all the other functions and Cmdlets.
2014-12-23
7,027 reads
The Big Database Freeze
When a hospital’s mission-critical database fails at Christmas, disaster for the hospital – and its hapless DBA – seems certain. With less than an hour to spare before catastrophe, can the DBA Team save the day? This is a fictionalized true story.
2014-12-23 (first published: 2014-12-04)
17,000 reads
Linked lists
Learn how you can achieve better performance with linked list instead of a numbering column.
2014-12-22
9,169 reads
Using the MERGE Statement to Perform an UPSERT
The term UPSERT has been coined to refer to an operation that inserts rows into a table if they don’t exist, otherwise they are updated. To perform the UPSERT operation Microsoft introduced the MERGE statement. Not only does the MERGE statement support the UPSERT concept, but it also supports deleting records. Greg Larsen discusses how to use the MERGE statement to UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE records from a target table.
2014-12-22
13,060 reads
What, when and who? Auditing 101 - Part 3
Who messed around with my database? Auditing 101. In this article we will take a look at another technique available in SQL 2008 and higher. This new technique is SQL Audit.
2014-12-19 (first published: 2012-05-31)
15,184 reads
SQL Server Analysis Services Attribute Relationships
This tip looks at some of the questions around attribute relationships in SQL Server Analysis Services, including why you need them, how to create them, and the common data sets involved.
2014-12-19
7,646 reads
GUIDs GUIDs everywhere, but how is my data unique?
After having seen many systems that use GUIDs as the primary key for every table, it is time to say enough is enough.
2014-12-18
9,991 reads
Questions About T-SQL Transaction Isolation Levels You Were Too Shy to Ask
Every time you access a relational database to make a query, you have an important decision to make: What is the appropriate isolation level for your query? If you get this wrong, the consequences can be serious. Deadlocks, Dirty reads, Non-repeatable reads, or poor performance. We're in luck, because Robert Sheldon once more answers those questions that are awkward to ask in public.
2014-12-18
12,150 reads
Introduction to Azure SQL Database Scalability
One of the primary advantages of Platform-as-a-Service solutions offered by Microsoft Azure is the ease with which scaling can be implemented. While SQL Database facilitates both vertical and horizontal scaling approaches, scaling it out is considerably more challenging. In this article, we will provide a high-level overview of both vertical and horizontal scaling methods available with Azure SQL Database.
2014-12-17
8,467 reads
Blogs
Methodology for dealing with bad data in production
By Brian Kelley
Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...
How to Provision an Azure SQL Database
Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database...
Claude finds two cryptographic weaknesses (but the sky isn’t falling)
By Brian Kelley
If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...
Forums
Symmetric Key Encryption
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
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...
Building Your Own Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software
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'; GOSee possible answers