Brian Kelley

Brian Kelley is an author, columnist, and Microsoft SQL Server MVP focusing primarily on SQL Server security. He is a contributing author for How to Cheat at Securing SQL Server 2005 (Syngress), Professional SQL Server 2008 Administration (Wrox), and Introduction to SQL Server (Texas Publishing). Brian currently serves as an infrastructure and security architect. He has also served as a senior Microsoft SQL Server DBA, database architect, developer, and incident response team lead.

Interests: Chess, Reading, Soccer (Football), Baseball, Animals, Theology

The Fallacy of Internal Access Only

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

In the wake of Shell Shock, I’ve seen some vendor advisories indicate that while their product is vulnerable, it’s only...

2014-10-07 (first published: 2014-09-30)

7,117 reads

Carolina Technology Conference: Presentation Materials

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

For those able to attend my session at this year’s Carolina Technology Conference, thank you! As promised, here are the...

2014-10-06

795 reads

Four Things PASS gets Right

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

PASS has taken a lot of heat recently. A few folks have pointed out that you only seem to hear...

2014-09-29 (first published: 2014-09-24)

6,777 reads

[Off-Topic] Beating Childhood Cancer

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

Note: I feel this post is important enough to post across all my blogs.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month here...

2014-09-09

550 reads

4 Attitudes I Wish I Had Earlier as a DBA

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I was tagged by Mike Walsh (blog | twitter) in his post 4 Attitudes I Wish I Had Earlier As a...

2014-09-05 (first published: 2014-08-28)

8,123 reads

Audit Webinar Tomorrow (4 September 2014)

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I will be given a webinar on how to audit SQL Server through MSSQLTips.com.
Webinar Registration Link
The abstract:
Don’t become a statistic....

2014-09-03

506 reads

Continuous Integration/Delivery without Testing!

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

Anything we can do to automate our builds and deployment should be considered. After all, the point isn’t just to...

2014-08-28 (first published: 2014-08-25)

7,614 reads

Still a Need for a SQL Server Specific Organization

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

If you haven’t already, please read Denise McInerney’s post about why PASS no longer stands for the Professional Association for...

2014-08-20

656 reads

Guest Post on SQL Authority – Default Trace & Deleted Databases

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I had the opportunity to write another guest post at SQL Authority:
Finding Out What Changed in a Deleted Database
This one...

2014-08-14

1,348 reads

One of Those Must Read Books – The Cuckoo’s Egg

by Brian Kelley

Databases – Infrastructure – Security

I was reading a book about network security monitoring and it mentioned The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll. Stoll’s book has been...

2014-08-13

515 reads

Blogs

“We love to debate minutiae”

By Brian Kelley

I am guilty as charged. The quote was in reference to how people argue...

Advice I Like: Knots

Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand....

Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency

As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Windows logins for users migrated from DomainA to DomainB

Hi, I have a SQL Server instance where users connect to via Windows Authentication,...

Multiple Deployment Processes

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes

How to Use sqlpackage to Detect Schema Drift Between Azure SQL Databases

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Use sqlpackage to...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Upgrading Admin Queries

I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?

See possible answers