David Fowler and Adrian Buckman, two database nerds who love nothing more than to spend their time, reading about, researching and sharing all things SQL Server.

David is a DBA with over 15 years production experience of SQL Server, from version 6.5 through to 2016. He has worked in a number of different settings and is currently the technical lead at one of the largest software companies in the UK.

After working in the motor trade for over 11 years Adrian decided to give it all up to persue a dream of working in I.T. Adrian has over 3 years of experience working with SQL server and loves all things SQL, Adrian currently works as a Database Administrator for one of the UK’s Largest Software Companies.

Creating a SQL Server Test Lab On Your Workstation – Part One, Installing The Domain Controller

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

One of the most useful tools to the DBA when we need to test new features, recreate a fault that...

2017-12-18

633 reads

GroupBy Slides and Demo Script is Now On GitHub

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

The slides and demo scripts from today’s GroupBy session are now available on our GitHub repository
https://github.com/SQLUndercover/UndercoverToolbox/tree/master/GroupBy
Many thanks again for watching,...

2017-12-08

349 reads

Using PowerShell To Deploy Scripts From GitHub to Multiple SQL Servers

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

Now I’m all for making my life easier and one thing that makes life easier for me is having a...

2017-11-27

526 reads

SQL Smackdown!!! Cursors VS Loops

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the main event of the evening. The SQL Undercover Smackdown Heavy Weight Championship of the...

2017-11-16

2,466 reads

T-SQL Tuesday – Folks Who Have Made a Difference #TSQL2sday

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

So this month’s T-SQL Tuesday subject is a shout out and high-five to those people who have inspired or made a...

2017-11-14

312 reads

T-SQL Tuesday #96 – Folks Who Have Made a Difference in my career #TSQL2sday

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

This months TSQL Tuesday subject is a shout out and high-five to those people who have inspired or made a contribution...

2017-11-14

702 reads

T-SQL Tuesday #96 How did I get started?

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

Hi Folks,

I’m the new guy that my two colleagues are still trying to convince to write my first blog post...

2017-11-14

452 reads

UNDERCOVER TOOLBOX: Using Python To Copy A SQL Login From One Server To Another

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

Recently I’ve been thinking about Python and whether it can be useful to the DBA as well as the data...

2017-10-30

391 reads

UNDERCOVER TOOLBOX: Find Untrusted Foreign Keys and Orphaned Key data

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

SQL Server tracks untrusted Foreign keys in sys.Foreign keys with a column called is_not_trusted, there may be a number of...

2017-10-24

192 reads

Connecting to a Remote Instance of SQL Server Using Python

by davidfowler-42596

SQL Undercover

SQL Server’s integration of Python has been heavily marketed towards the machine learning and BI guys, but does it offer...

2017-10-18

1,115 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

Database backup job steps

I have a SQL Agent job for backing up a set of Analysis Services...

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

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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