Andy Warren

I started my SQL journey here at SQLServerCentral as one of the founders, helping to build a place to share and learn that continues to thrive under the editorial guidance of my friend Steve Jones. I've done a lot of volunteer work over the years ranging from our local SQL group (oPASS, SQLOrlando) to serving on the Board of Directors of PASS to designing and building the framework of SQLSaturday (which has gone on to produce more than 1000 locally managed events since we started in 2007). These days I manage a DBA team, but over the years I've been a trainer, consultant, contractor, and DBA. I'm rarely present on social media, the best way to contact me is here, LinkedIn, or via email.

Blog Post

Thoughts on the PASS Virtual Summit

Some thoughts on the PASS Virtual Summit this year: Clearly the in-person option wasn’t doable. Just too hard to know infection rate, local rules, employer travel guidelines, attendee and...

2020-07-31 (first published: )

218 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

A Pattern Based Approach to Masking Errors

A few years ago I had a requirement to allow both developers and customers to see rows from a table used to store error information while making sure that any PII, PCI or similar sensitive data was not displayed. The tolerance for “oops” was low! This article presents one way to solve the challenge by […]

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2020-04-27

1,763 reads

Blog Post

Covid Thoughts, So Far

I’ve gathered a bunch of notes from conversations and time reflecting, thought I’d write them down to at least be able to look back at them once the storm...

2020-04-04

147 reads

Blog Post

SQLOrlando Update

We’ve cancelled our upcoming Meetups in April and May due the loss of our venue (due to corona virus worries) though we would have probably cancelled them anyway. Our...

2020-03-16

6 reads

Blogs

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Forums

Where Your Value Separates You from Others

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Where Your Value Separates You...

Fixing the Error

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing the Error

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Encoding Functions

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...

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Question of the Day

Fixing the Error

On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error?

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