Mala Mahadevan

My name is Malathi, a.k.a Mala - I am a DBA turned BI/Data Science person, working with SQL Server since 6.5. I am also founder of the Louisville SQL Server user group, organizer of 8 SQL Saturdays, Regional mentor for northeast, and 14-year PASS conference attendee. In my spare time I love to garden, travel, read, paint, and do yoga.

Blog Post

Thrilled to #BITS!

2021 was a strange year…mid way through a pandemic, enormously depressing on many fronts to me..and yet, it bought with it some unexpected joys. I never imagined, in the...

2022-02-09

19 reads

Blog Post

Introducing ScriptDOM

I’ve been meaning to get a series of blog posts started on this topic. A twitter conversation from yesterday finally pushed me to it. Last year, I was tasked...

2022-02-04 (first published: )

853 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Formatting T-SQL Scripts using ScriptDOM and PowerShell

Well-formatted scripts are always easier to maintain and enhance readability to high degree. Formatting standards are an important part of coding standards anywhere and if not, they need to be. If there are a large number of scripts this can add up to a significant amount of time needed to maintain them. It is also […]

(5)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2021-08-27

9,537 reads

Blogs

Microsoft announces new cybersecurity AI multi-model

By

Yesterday, July 27, 2026, Microsoft announced a new cybersecurity effort called Project Perception. Included...

Getting the SQL Server MCP Server Running

By

If you’ve wanted a SQL Server MCP server for your databases, it’s available. The...

Introducing azsql-migration-test: Test and Validate Azure SQL Database Migrations

By

Introducing azsql-migration-test, a small open-source CLI that validates your Azure SQL Database migrations against...

Read the latest Blogs

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

Visit the forum

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