Tips for Simplifying Crosstab Query Statements
Rob Gravelle takes a complex SQL statement and shows you several ways to re-write it that both simplifies and shortens it, while still yielding the same results.
2010-02-22
4,532 reads
Additional Articles
TSQL Challenge 24 - Find discrepancies in the scheduled activities and actual activities performed by employees
This is a problem that I had seen in one of the forums many years back. This problem is related to a reporting requirement from the data stored by a 'poorly designed' system.
2010-02-22
1,839 reads
Code that Writes Code - A Good Idea or Not?
I’m a big fan of code that writes code – most of the time. For instance, whenever you use the “templates” feature in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or the Maintenance Wizard, you’re using code that writes other code. There’s even ...
2010-02-19
2,862 reads
Corruption Recovery Tips, Database Shrinkage Advice and More
Question: My backup strategy is a daily full backup at 1 a.m. and a log backup every hour. A DBCC CHECKDB also runs every day at 4 a.m. If I get to work at 8 a.m. and discover that the nighttime consistency checks found extensive corruption, how can I recover without losing a lot of data?
2010-02-19
2,199 reads
Striping SQL Server Database Backups
As databases get larger, the time for database backups to complete grows as well. Unfortunately, the time window for your backups may not increase. It could very well be the case that you reach a point where your backups will not finish in a specified amount of time.
2010-02-18
2,791 reads
Database Level Auditing with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
MAK shows us how easy it is to create a database level audit, test the audit and retrieve the audit records in Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
2010-02-17
5,905 reads
Use SSIS to import one cell of an Excel file into SQL Server
Recently I needed to find a method to import one cell of an Excel sheet into SQL Server 2005 using a scheduled job on a 64 bit clustered environment. For example, I have a monthly sales report listing sales per product category, such as Books, Magazines, DVDs, etc. I only want to import the Total Sales amount into SQL Server and this number is located in an Excel file "sales.xls.sheet1.cell.B5". I used to use OPENROWSET to solve the problem, however OPENROWSET requires Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider which is not available in 64 bit. In this tip I am going to talk about how to use SSIS to accomplish this task easily.
2010-02-15
4,402 reads
Azure Tutorial - Building a'Hello Word' app in Visual Studio
This article demonstrates how to build a simple Azure app using Visual Studio
2010-02-12
3,679 reads
Configure Windows Firewall to Work with SQL Server
Windows Firewall is an OS level software firewall. It can be a crucial part of OS level security if you are not using other firewall hardware or software. Since I do not have another firewall I have a need to enable Windows Firewall for my SQL Server database server. In this article I go through the process of configuring Windows Firewall for different scenarios along with the associated considerations.
2010-02-11
4,068 reads
Using Analysis Services Processing Task & Analysis Services Execute DDL Task in SSIS
Learn how the Analysis Services Processing Task can be used to process analysis services objects such as cubes, dimensions and mining models.
2010-02-10
1,883 reads
Blogs
Claude finds two cryptographic weaknesses (but the sky isn’t falling)
By Brian Kelley
If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...
Generate Embeddings in SQL with Aurora and Bedrock
Most embedding pipelines on AWS have the same shape: a job reads rows out...
Resolving SQL Server Transaction Log Issues Efficiently
By Arun Sirpal
Transaction log issues are one of the quietest ways a healthy database turns into...
Forums
Symmetric Key Encryption
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The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why Your Login Auditing Strategy Might Be Hurting Your Server
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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'; GOSee possible answers