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Sending messages to Slack from SQL Server 2025

In an earlier tip, A history of accessing REST APIs and web pages from SQL Server, I talked about reaching out to external endpoints from SQL Server, including the new sys.sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint procedure that hit the on-premises editions in SQL Server 2025. This seemed like an ideal use case to enhance our current solution for sending a message to Slack: using xp_cmdshell to call a PowerShell script that calls Invoke-RestMethod. In this tip, I’ll describe how we changed our implementation and why it is a marked improvement for us.

2026-01-23

External Article

Generating Shape Bound Random Points in SQL Server

Random number generation is vital in computer science, supporting fields like optimization, simulation, robotics, and gaming. The quality, speed, and sometimes security of the generator can directly affect an algorithm’s correctness, performance, and competitiveness. In Python, random number generation is well-supported and widely used. In this article, we will look how to we can use SQL to do this.

2026-01-09

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Question of the Day

Restoring On Top I

I am doing development work on a database and want to keep a backup so I can reset my database. I make some changes and want to restore over top of my changes. When I run this code, what happens? 

USE Master
BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak'
GO

USE DNRTest
GO
CREATE TABLE MyTest(myid INT)
GO
USE master
RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACE

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