Tribal Awards Finalists
Voting is now open for the Tribal Awards. Vote for one of the 5 finalists in each category to win a fabulous* prize.
2014-12-16
1,348 reads
Articles
SQL Server Reporting Services Basics: The Visual Controls
Kathi Kellenberger demonstrates how to start adding visual flair to your SSRS reports, using its impressive set of visual controls, ranging from basic charts to gauges, indicators, sparklines, and maps.
2014-12-16
7,115 reads
Adding a Query Governor to Dynamic-Search Stored Procedures
When undisciplined users access your search forms, you can control their behavior and limit the results they're presented with in various ways.
2014-12-15
4,097 reads
Debugging Natively-Compiled Stored Procedures Statements
Considering that SQL Server 2014 Natively Compiled Stored Procedures are compiled into binary code, you may have asked yourself if it's possible to monitor statement execution. In this tip Daniel Farina explains how you can monitor SQL Server Natively Compiled Stored Procedures.
2014-12-15
6,974 reads
What, when and who? Auditing 101 - Part 2
In my previous article we discussed Change Tracking which is one of the new technologies introduced by Microsoft. This article will focus on Change Data Capture.
2014-12-12 (first published: 2012-01-16)
13,541 reads
Finding SQL Server views with (or without) a certain property
In this tip Aaron Bertrand uses SQL Server metadata queries to discover SQL Server views that have certain properties or use certain syntax.
2014-12-12
5,919 reads
Cloud Identities versus Federated Identities in Office 365
Identities, the 'accounts' by which Cloud and Web users identify themselves, are tricky to manage, and tiresome for the users. Cloud services such as Office 365 have their main use in large organisations and so there have to be easy ways for system administrators to maintain them. Microsoft provide three alternative strategies; Cloud identities, Synced identities and federated identities. What is the differences between them, and which should you choose?
2014-12-11
8,211 reads
SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Excessive Virtual Log Files in Transaction Log
This metric picks up excessive counts of Virtual Log Files (VLF) in a transaction log that can lead to performance problems, including write performance, restore and recovery times. The ideal value for this metric should be less than 25; excessively high values (greater than 50) can cause high write times when writing to the transaction log.
2014-12-11
7,312 reads
SQL Server Survey
How do you use SQL Server, and how do you expect this to change next year? Fill in our survey, and enter a prize draw to win Amazon vouchers.
2014-12-11 (first published: 2014-12-02)
19,631 reads
Lead and Lag Functions in SQL Server 2012
Arshad Ali discusses how to use CTE and the ranking function to access or query data from previous or subsequent rows. He also shows you how to leverage the LEAD and LAG analytics functions to achieve the same result without writing a self-join query using CTE and ranking function
2014-12-10
8,382 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