Brian Kelley

Brian Kelley is an author, columnist, and Microsoft SQL Server MVP focusing primarily on SQL Server security. He is a contributing author for How to Cheat at Securing SQL Server 2005 (Syngress), Professional SQL Server 2008 Administration (Wrox), and Introduction to SQL Server (Texas Publishing). Brian currently serves as an infrastructure and security architect. He has also served as a senior Microsoft SQL Server DBA, database architect, developer, and incident response team lead.

Interests: Chess, Reading, Soccer (Football), Baseball, Animals, Theology

Why I Have Had a Hard Time Adopting PowerShell

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

PowerShell has been out for a while. When it first came out, I went and grabbed a copy and tinkered...

2010-04-14

4,280 reads

Hosting a User Group Meeting - Day of "Bare Bones" Checklist

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

This actually came as a response to a tweet from Mike Walsh (Twitter | Blog). But here is the barebones checklist I...

2010-04-13

588 reads

Cloud Computing - Will Data Breaches Cost More?

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

That's the main point from the following article:
Video: Data breaches to cost more in the cloud
The cost was calculated per...

2010-04-09

1,032 reads

A Good Expansion on the Topic of Plagiarism

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

In a previous post I gave some links which help explain what plagiarism is and how to generally avoid it....

2010-04-08

664 reads

SQL University Starting Back Up

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

Jorge Segarra's ( @SQLChicken) excellent community idea, SQL University, is starting back up next week. This is effectively free training on...

2010-04-08

742 reads

New MSSQLTips Article: Nesting Database Roles in SQL Server

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I'm still way behind on my writing for the year, thanks to fighting off stronger than usual migraines and now...

2010-04-07

1,670 reads

What I Do to Prep a Technical Presentation

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

This was a question asked on Twitter the other day, "How do folks prepare for a presentation?" Here are some...

2010-04-06

800 reads

So you want to write a blog?

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

First, figure out what you want to write about. It should be something you have passion for. And it should...

2010-03-27

1,533 reads

Learning About Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

Among the Microsoft certifications, the Microsoft Certified Master is the apex of all of them except maybe the Microsoft Certified...

2010-03-26

1,675 reads

SQL Saturday - Columbia

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I've talked about trying to do a SQL Saturday event in Columbia, SC, for the last couple of years, ever...

2010-03-26

672 reads

Blogs

The Book of Redgate: Spread across the world

This was Redgate in 2010, spread across the globe. First the EU/US Here’s Asia...

Merry Christmas

Today is Christmas and while I do not expect anybody to actual be reading...

Self-Hosting a Photo Server the Whole Family Can Use

Until recently, my family's 90,000+ photos have been hidden away in the depths of...

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Forums

SQL Server 2025 Backup Compression Algorithm

By Johan Bijnens

Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Backup Compression...

The Large Encoded Value

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Large Encoded Value

The Side Job

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Side Job

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

The Large Encoded Value

I want to use the new BASE64_ENCODE() function in SQL Server 2025, but return a string that isn't large type. What is the longest varbinary string I can pass in and still get a varchar(8000) returned?

See possible answers