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.

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 […]

(1)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2020-04-27

1,763 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Worst Practices - Objects Not Owned by DBO

Last week Andy launched a new series about Worst Practices by talking about why the Hungarian naming convention is bad for column names. This week he's at it again, declaring that the practice of having objects owned by anyone other than dbo is BAD! Agree or disagree, we think you'll enjoy reading this article and adding your thoughts to the discussion!

(7)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2019-08-01 (first published: )

38,419 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Error Logging Gone Wild

Many of have applications that log errors to a table. Ever thought about what happens when an application starts to throw a lot of errors? This article looks at the problem and some of the responses you might consider having ready in case it happens to you!

(6)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2016-10-11

1,805 reads

Technical Article

Time to Rebrand

I became a SQL guy back in 1998 because the company that hired me used SQL Server. It’s been a good ride and it’s paid the bills, but after 15 years or so it’s time to do something different.

2015-04-01

6,297 reads

Blogs

SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data

By

Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...

Setting PK Names in Redgate Data Modeler

By

A customer was testing Redgate Data Modeler and complained that it auto-generated PK names....

Flyway Tips: AI Deployment Script Descriptions

By

With the AI push being everywhere, Redgate is no exception. We’ve been getting requests,...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working

By Paul Hernández

Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...

High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?

By Paul Lancaster

Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...

Semantic Search in SQL Server 2025

By Deepam Ghosh

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Semantic Search in SQL Server...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Encoding URLs

I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table:

CREATE TABLE Response
( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY
, ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000)
)
GO
If I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use?

See possible answers