Additional Articles


External Article

Why Ordering Isn’t Guaranteed Without an ORDER BY

If your query doesn’t have an ORDER BY clause, you can’t reliably predict the order of your results over time. Sure, it’s going to look predictable at first, but down the road, as things change – the indexes, the table, the server’s configuration, the size of your data – you can end up with some ugly surprises.

2020-05-15

External Article

A Hybrid Approach to Database DevOps

A flexible approach to Database DevOps where the team maintain the current state of the database in version control, during development, and then at key stages generate and test the migrations script that will deploy the changes to the target database, safely.

2020-05-14

External Article

How to ACTUALLY save money in the cloud with SQL Server

We have all heard migrating to the cloud can save you money and there are several ways moving your SQL Server workloads to the cloud can save your organization money. But, there are also missteps that can eat away at the savings, performance and even your availability creating instead an expensive, ineffective, difficult to manage cloud infrastructure.

2020-05-14

Technical Article

Introduction to Azure SQL Database Instance Pools

In one of the article, Considerations for Deploying Azure SQL Database Managed Instances, recently published on this site, basic characteristics of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance were described. Its biggest selling points include nearly full compatibility with on-premises SQL Server deployments, support for SQL Server Agent, and additional security associated with its Azure virtual network integration.

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2020-05-13

Technical Article

Using SQL Clone and SQL Change Automation to switch database branches

Learn how to use SQL Clone together with Git hooks and SQL Change Automation to branch your database in Git as easily as your code. By enabling multiple copies of the same database to exist on a single instance, the integration of these tools allows seamless database branch switching.

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2020-05-12

Blogs

Methodology for dealing with bad data in production

By

Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...

How to Provision an Azure SQL Database

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Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database...

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

By

If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...

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Forums

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...

Building Your Own Software

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software

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Question of the Day

Symmetric Key Encryption

If I run this statement in SQL Server 2025, how is the password encrypted?

CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY MySymmetricKey
WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256,
KEY_SOURCE = 'My secret key source passphrase',
IDENTITY_VALUE = 'My secret identity value'
ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S&perS#cretP@ssword7';
GO

See possible answers