When I get stumped I ….
I work with a reasonably large team of DBAs. There are 9 of us and we support not only 70+...
2012-10-02
1,206 reads
Kenneth Fisher
DBMail on a cluster
I’ve always found clusters a pain in the neck. For my latest pain I just spent the last 2 days...
2012-09-26
634 reads
Using a TVP instead of Dynamic SQL to pass a list into a SP
A couple of days ago I read Steve Jones’ blog on creating a user defined table type. This reminded me...
2012-09-25
1,187 reads
Funny results from OPTIMIZE FOR AD HOC WORKLOADS
I recently turned on OPTIMIZE FOR AD HOC WORKLOADS for the first time on one of my servers. When I...
2012-09-18
1,370 reads
2012-09-13
2,870 reads
EXECUTE AS USER = ‘Somebody else’
As a database administrator I get lots of security requests. “Please grant me read authority on this table, write on that table,...
2012-09-10
747 reads
2012-09-07
2,798 reads
sp_helptext
My manager has been quietly laughing under his breath at me for years. Usually because I much prefer queries and...
2012-09-02
4,120 reads
At Startup SSMS setting
I came across this handy dandy little setting earlier this year. It was well hidden from me, by which I...
2012-08-27
665 reads
keyword DEFAULT
In 12 years of working with SQL it was only last year that I came across the keyword DEFAULT and...
2012-08-20
1,347 reads
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
Backing Up a DMK
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Backing Up a DMK
The Quiet Part
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Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
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