Kenneth Fisher

My name is Kenneth Fisher and I am Senior DBA for a large (multi-national) insurance company. I have been working with databases for over 20 years starting with Clarion and Foxpro. I’ve been working with SQL Server for 12 years but have only really started “studying” the subject for the last 3. I don’t have any real "specialities" but I enjoy trouble shooting and teaching. Thus far I’ve earned by MCITP Database Administrator 2008, MCTS Database Administrator 2005, and MCTS Database Developer 2008. I’m currently studying for my MCITP Database Developer 2008 and should start in on the 2012 exams next year. My blog is at https://sqlstudies.com/.

What SQL version is my SSIS package?

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

When SSIS first came out there were huge numbers of jokes and posts about all of the problems and how...

2015-04-27

1,102 reads

Remotely shutting down an instance

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

This month for T-SQL Tuesday Mike Donnelly (b/t) decided to pick a topic to fit in with Ed Leighton-Dick’s (b/t)...

2015-04-23 (first published: 2015-04-14)

5,326 reads

Backup before you restore

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

You should always be recoverable. If you haven’t heard that before, take note of it. It’s important.
A while back...

2015-04-22

499 reads

The hidden security of msdb

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

To be fair it’s not actually hidden, just not so well known.
Have you ever wondered how to grant permissions...

2015-04-20

1,507 reads

Adding, altering or removing multiple columns from a table

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I was recently asked to do some fairly heavy modifications to a table. It involved adding 6 new columns, removing...

2015-04-16

964 reads

Make sure you back up the Service Master Key

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I’m by no means an expert in SQL Server encryption. What I do know however, is that the Service Master...

2015-04-08

818 reads

What is a CTE

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

CTEs (Common Table Expressions) are one of the most interesting and useful tools added to T-SQL in the last decade....

2015-04-06

697 reads

Port numbers and SQL Server

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I made a mistake the other day. I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Now I know all of you are...

2015-04-03 (first published: 2015-03-30)

9,021 reads

Microsoft buys the dictionary

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

It seems that Microsoft has finally gotten tired of all the jokes about the word “performant” or using “ask” as...

2015-04-01

485 reads

Clean out all bad characters from a string.

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I have a customer who is having a problem with a load. He is getting a fair number of bad...

2015-03-25

1,101 reads

Blogs

AI: Blog a Day – Day 7: Vector and Vector Databases

By Vinay Thakur

Continuing from Day 6 we learned Embeddings, Semantic Search and Checks, on Day 7...

AI: Blog a Day – Day 6: Embeddings – How AI Understands

By Vinay Thakur

Continuing from Day 5 where we covered notebooks, HuggingFace and fine tuning AI now...

The Book of Redgate: Mistakes

This is kind of a funny page to look at. The next page has...

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Forums

Why End-User Testing Is Even More Important with AI

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why End-User Testing Is Even...

Dynamic Unpivot

I have a table I didn't design that has tons of repeating groups in...

Writing as an Art and a Job

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Writing as an Art and...

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Question of the Day

String Similarity II

What is the range for the result from the EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY() function in SQL Server 2025?

See possible answers