Dustin Ryan is a Data Platform Solution Architect on the Education Specialist Team Unit at Microsoft. Dustin has worked in the business intelligence and data warehousing field since 2008, has spoken at community events such as Code Camp, SQL Saturday, SQL Rally, and PASS Summit, and has a wide range of experience using the Microsoft business intelligence stack of products across multiple industries. Prior to his time at Microsoft, Dustin worked as a business intelligence consultant and trainer for Pragmatic Works, a Microsoft partner. Dustin is also an author, contributor and technical editor of books such as Applied Microsoft Business Intelligence, Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services with MDX and DAX, and others. You can learn more about Dustin at http://SQLDusty.com.

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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...

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

SQL Server 2025 CU1 Fixes the Docker Desktop AVX Issue on macOS

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Microsoft fixed the AVX instruction issue in SQL Server 2025 CU1. The container now...

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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

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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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