Tracy McKibben

My real name is Tracy McKibben. I’ve been working with database products for over 20 years, starting with FoxBase running on Xenix. Over the years, I’ve worked with all flavors of FoxPro, some Clipper and dBase, and starting somewhere around 1995, SQL Server. I’ve even dabbled with Oracle, though I’ve tried to block out all memories of that experience.

At present, I’m the Senior SQL Server DBA and the DBA Team Supervisor for Pearson VUE. All opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Pearson VUE.
  • Interests: Tech, gadgets, model railroading, photography, and of course SQL Server!

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Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents

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A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...

Car Update: August 2026

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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

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An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...

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Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires

By Pat Wright

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Backing Up a DMK

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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The Quiet Part

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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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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