Derek Wilson

Derek Wilson delivers tactical and strategic Business Intelligence and Enterprise Architecture solutions. His primary focus in on Microsoft SQL Server technologies and aligning business problems to technology solutions. He architects BI solutions leveraging SQL Server, SharePoint and any other technologies that help his clients achieve better data driven decisions. By leveraging the information learned while collecting requirements for BI projects, he helps align business processes to technology helping further organizations Enterprise Architecture. He is an author, trainer, blogger and has been using SQL Server since version 6.5.

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Blogs

PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI

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I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...

Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!

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Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...

Monday Monitor Tips: SQL Auditing Preview

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One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...

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25 Years of SQL Server Central

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years of SQL Server...

The Decoded Value

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Decoded Value

Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition in Kubernetes: A Cost-Effective Alternative to RDS

By Sujai Krishna

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition...

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Question of the Day

The Decoded Value

In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code: 

DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!';
DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX);

SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000)));
SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)

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