hellosqlkitty

Josephine Bush is a Data Platform MVP and has over 10 years of experience as a Database Administrator. Her experience is extensive and broad-based, including in financial, business, and energy data sectors using SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL along with Azure and AWS. She is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: Data Management and Analytics. She holds a BS in Information Technology, an MBA in IT Management, and an MS in Data Analytics. She presents at SQL conferences and user groups around the world. She is the leader of the Boulder SQL user group. She blogs on sqlkitty.com and you can reach her on Twitter @hellosqlkitty.

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Blog Post

Data (and Humans) At Rest

We talk a lot about data in the data world – imagine that! Sometimes, we talk about data at rest, but when do we all rest? Do we even...

2024-08-12 (first published: )

183 reads

Blog Post

Terraform Elastic Jobs

I did a couple of other posts on Elastic Jobs. But now I want to set them up with Terraform. This aligns with how we create infrastructure where I...

2024-07-31 (first published: )

162 reads

Blog Post

Export Azure SQL DB to Storage

After a data migration, we needed to decommission the old Azure SQL DBs, but we wanted to keep a copy in case we needed anything later. Enter exporting an...

2024-07-03 (first published: )

400 reads

Blog Post

ERD Your Existing Databases

There are several tools out there to make your life easier by creating an ERD for your existing db. Everything works pretty well when you have a small number...

2024-06-12 (first published: )

580 reads

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Blogs

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...

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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Forums

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)

See possible answers