Articles

External Article

Protect Confidential SQL Server Data Q and A

Following on from a webcast, Tim Smith answers some questions on SQL Server security like: Is It Better To Mask At the Application Level Or The SQL Server Database Level? Are there any options to find SSNs in SQL Server besides RegEx? And, why would anyone store sensitive data un-encrypted in SQL Server?

2014-10-02

8,457 reads

External Article

Filling In Missing Values Using the T-SQL Window Frame

Since SQL Server delivered the entire range of window functions, there has been far less justification for using the non-standard ex-Sybase 'Quirky Update' tricks to perform the many permutations of running totals in SQL Server. One of these related problems is the 'Data Smear'. Do window functions make this easier, and what is performance like? Dwain Camps investigates.

2014-10-01

11,294 reads

External Article

Azure Diagnostics for Virtual Machines

Hosting a scalable application in Azure seems ideal, but what happens when things go wrong? Azure Cloud Services provide extensive diagnostics, and this feature has now been extended to Azure web sites and Azure Virtual Machines. You need to set up diagnostics on the VM, but once this is done, all your logs, traces and performance counters can be collected from many VMs in one place for easy management.

2014-09-29

7,986 reads

Blogs

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How to Provision an Azure SQL Database

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Claude finds two cryptographic weaknesses (but the sky isn’t falling)

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Forums

Fixing P1 Queries

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing P1 Queries

Symmetric Key Encryption

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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

By Pablo Echeverria

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...

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Question of the Day

BIT_COUNT() IV

In SQL Server 2025, I run this code:

select bit_count('A')
What is returned?

See possible answers